You can't be the Pinball Wizard when the job requires you to be the pinball.
I'm in a similar situation. This is what works for me. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of what I'm working on currently and my progress so far. I don't update it all the time - probably something like every 3 to 4 days. sometimes it's as simple as adding a line to say "Emailed Phil with my recommendations, waiting to hear back from him - call him if no word by 23rd".
I'm constantly having to jump between various projects. This is the only way I've found to keep track of status of various things. Sometimes I'll be out on plant dealing with an issue all day or supervising a trial or tied up with meetings etc. Before I adopted this system it was a nightmare picking things up again after a few days away from my desk.