Is anybody else in the same situation - I have so many peripheral (but important) things to do that I don't actually have time to get on with the actual research I want to do. I am writing a paper for a conference but I am also working on stuff for my next review panel.
I have to do a case study of an aspect of my research to present to the panel, but it's much more detailed than I will actually need for my thesis. I resent having to read up on this and do research which is not directly related to my main research. They also want me to do two pages for each chapter outline, which I think is a bit excessive. I resent having to work on all this extra stuff and feel that I can't get on with the analysis of my data and proper research until I have done all this extra stuff.

Do you feel better now having let off steam!

Unfortunately from what I've seen and experienced myself this is just part of the PhD process. My first year wasn't too bad but I have felt exactly the same as you do for the last 6 months, I am only just now getting to a point where I've dealt with most of those other commitments. Even then, I will only get about a month of complete focus on my research then it will be split focus again for the rest of the year with the many other commitments.
All you can really do is push on as best you can and if there are any extra commitments stressing you out that you are able to drop, drop them so that you can focus more on your research.

i know how that feels! it's very frustrating when all you want to do is focus 100% on your phd but you gotta do those annoying other things.

i would say if its really affecting your concentration maybe speak about it with your supervisor and maybe you can spend more time on your actual phd.

i've realised the only one that REALLY cares about your phd is yourself and only now at the end of my phd have i realised that no one is going to stand up for my time and my phd but me.

i wish i knew this back then, when my supervisors would tell me to do x y z unrelated to my phd. i wish i had the courage to say, you know what, no i can't i need to work on my phd.

sometimes they use us phd students as slave labour! and we feel we can never say no. but sometimes we have to say no.

I to have felt like a force for unpaid slave labour. I started off working on the bigger project and although I developed my PhD out of it, large parts of my time were devoted to the bigger project. I was distracted to the extent that I wasn't able to focus completley on my PhD, and consequently failed my upgrade-which I'm sorting out right now. Now that I'm completely focused on my PhD, my work has improved massively. What really hurt was despite my efforts with the bigger project and now that I'm focusing on my PhD, the writer of the project interim reports(non supervisor, member of staff in department, woman who seems to undermine me all the time and is super bitchy and competitive) and despite cutting and pasting work from my methodology toolkit, fieldworker guidance etc) decided to cut my name out of all reports. My name has been reinstated into SOME of the reports-not sure why not all of them! (after my strongly worded compliants to them all!!).

yes, pamw, that could have been me who wrote that. i find that currently the biggest problem with my PhD is that i have so little time i can spend on it. there are always other things that are urgent. between teaching, going to conferences, trying to write papers, having to write stuff for the upgrade which will be useless for the PhD, writing funding applications - but also project groups, reading group, helping out friends etc, i.e. things i choose to do rather than am made to do - the PhD time dwindles until it hardly feels like i'm doing a PhD anymore.

i find that sometimes it helps to say NO categorically to everything. or to define a day per week which is uniquely reserved for the PhD. also, some of the "other" things sometimes surprisingly come back to benefit the PhD.

yes, I know hoe you feel but I tend to get myself into those situations! Agreeing to write articles, and so forth. But from what I can see, that's what both academia and industry are like at all levels, not just PhD. I try to think of it as "all good experience" (whilst gnashing my teeth).

Oh yeah, I do feel the same way. The only difference is that besides the work that I have to do in school, I have to help my parents and my grandmother with errands. Somehow, they think that a PhD student's life means that I have plenty of time to run errands for them. This is what researchers label as Family Overload in the Work-Family Balance literature. :)