How to be separate from yourself

Sometimes your daydreams merge and you'll be thinking of dolphins when all of a sudden, you're distracted by a giant turnip (or something). I typically don't ever think of turnips, but what happens to me is I work on stories and poems and essays, and everything is merging all the time.

I suppose I should be grateful for that--that the mind is churning so wonderfully this late in my career. But often what happens is, I get stuck. The corners of one project snag on the corners of another and it's almost like I need a playground supervisor to come and blow her whistle and say...enough. What has helped is having separate tables. This is a great idea and I can't believe I only just started a separate table for fiction. Of course I use the floor but I try to keep everything that I'm currently working on handy. That's my problem right there. While the idea of keeping things close and available is great and it has helped quite a bit to have a separate table, I still need to recognize there is only one me. But how do you separate yourself from yourself? What do you do to keep your ideas cooking but all separately? Bottom line: you can only work on one thing at a time. You can rotate but you cannot work on more than one thing. If you know of a better way than to make piles and use the wall to keep track, let me know.