This close to falling apart

I'm beginning to believe that I'm inches away from a total meltdown. I'm so stressed out with work, home, life in general really and there doesn't appear to be any hope in sight.

Perhaps I'm overexagerating. But not likely.

I could put in 12 hour days for a solid week, never answer a phone, never attend to a client that comes in the office, basically never leave my desk the entire time and still not be caught up. Part of it is the mess that was left behind by the former secretary, part of it is how extremely overloaded our caseload is and part of it is learning curve. It's just beyond anything I can keep under control and it seems that anytime I feel as though I've made one step forward I end up 10 steps back.

For example - filing. It's out of control. I have a stack of papers that are no less than 2 feet high sitting on the floor in my office. Every day I flip through it looking for anything that may be needed the next day. I've tried taking time to get caught up, but it never fails that I end up on the phone all day or on another project.

I can handle this job. I'm not worried about that. But I'm starting to believe that my boss is rethinking how great it was that she got me. I'm better than the previous secretary, no doubt about that, and I have experience with things that none of her staff has had for a great number of years. But its the little stuff that has consumed my life. I haven't left the office on time in over a week. My husband is a little (ok, a LOT) less than happy with the fact that I'm not getting home until well after 6pm. I'm not happy about it either, but what can I do?

We had a guy in here that was answering phones and I was able to tell him that I was unavailable for large chunks of the day while I worked on catching up. He hasn't been in for three weeks. And apparently the other secretary here only answers the phone if she has to. That's a big change from my prior office where we switched off days - one of us did even numbered days and the other did odd numbered days. It worked. I think I'm going to make that suggestion because I know she's just as busy as I am and it may help ease things for both of us.

I have to get this mess cleaned up and formulate some sort of routine. It can't go on like this and I can't allow it to become any worse. I'm exhausted.