Not as skilled at juggling as I thought

It seems like I can juggle several balls ok but that blogging is the ball I keep throwing up so high that it takes longer to get down to my hands than the others, and therefore I keep dropping it.

Not a skilled or rather practiced blogger, it's hard for me to take the time to blog. I feel like I'm a fairly good juggler but this month has been tough for me (Sept). In the name of balance I've lessened my load in some other areas of my life but as everyone keeps saying, life keeps happening...

This past week I found an entire thread in my arp class i had missed. My heart sunk as I thought I was keeping up or almost keeping up and I was so mad at myself. Then, I had planned to work on that all weekend and I had to leave town for a funeral getting back late Monday night. Now my 17 month old son is sick and I leave on a trip tomorrow. I'm feeling like I'm letting people down but I know after talking to lots of others that everyone is feeling at least somewhat overwhelmed.

I'm learning that I have to live and work in the moment and just keep doing the best I can. A couple of quotes stay in my head, first, "How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time." The second, "Life will happen." So I'm learning that I get overwhelmed with the big picture but one of the things that helps me to manage that overwhelmed feeling is to break things down into smaller tasks and manage thos over time so one huge thing doesn't sneak up on me. I'm working on exactly what the best way to manage all these are. This will definately be important for me as I continue to work on many projects and have an active family and social life. The elements I need to keep track of these are:
1 - have with me all/most the time
2 - easy to separate into diff't projects and break projects down into chunks
3 - seperate personal, school business
4 - look ahead and reschedule items
I've toyed with lists in my blackberry but there doesn't seem to be a good function for organizing them other than by due date. I've had a planner but it seems so archaic and when things change it seems like I'm spending so much time crossing out or rewriting things. I've also had a note book so I can design the paper and write how, where I'd like. Although I'm still rewriting, this seems like I might try this again for a while. I'm trying to think if there is a tech tool to do this with. I have a project manager but that seems to cumbersome and detailed, overkill for organizing my day to day life. Is there something out there that does this? Anyone know, please let me know. Maybe there is a market for this tool?I've come to the conclusion my calendar is best on the bb but now i need to work on my lists and project management.

I notice this is directly connected to how I organize my thoughts. It also occurs to me that my thoughts and task management tends to be pretty linear. I have so many ideas of concepts and projects but I'm not totally sure I break them down to tasks the most effective way. In fact, I've noticed that I LOVE coming up with the concepts and ideas and discussions of them but then dread the day to day tasks and completion of them. I'm learning I'm more of an idea person. How does this relate to my linear task managent. Is all task management linear? Do all people try to make linear representations of their thoughts and tasks when it comes down to completing the parts that make a whole? Seems like this might start to delve into the right brain/left brain stuff. Are creative people's minds geared and organized very differently when it comes to working through a project. I think Susan is doing some of this in her ARP. I'm going to research her progress a little. It also occurs to me that knowing our groups arps not only gives us direct access and benefit to our own arp and support of it, but also a fairly thorough knowledge of several other's arps therefore increasing the chances we might integrate some of these changes or ideas into our workplaces as well as our own ARP, making the ripple effect seem more like waves. :)