day flowers and other knitting

i started the day flowers lace scarf this weekend. i know...that's not socks! october is half over and my grand socktober plans aren't quite panning out so far. i haven't even finished my jaywalkers, though i worked on those this weekend too, and am just past the heel at this point, so i should get those done soon-ish. so that leaves me with three (well, technically five) unfinished projects at this point - jaywalkers, day flowers, orangina, plus one plain-jane slipper to finish, and a cardigan i started aaages ago and have no real intention of picking up again.

so i wanted to ask...what do you think is an 'appropriate' amount of works in progress? do you have a policy of finishing one project before starting another? or do you just go where your knitting urges take you? i think i've given myself a rough guideline of being allowed to have one garment, one sock and one accessory in the works at any given time. so since i finished the totoro hat, i was able to start the scarf. i'm itching to start new socks - but i'll have to wait til those jaywalkers get done! and i'm dying to start the squirrel and oak mittens, but alas, those too will have to wait til the scarf gets done. who knew i could be so strict with myself about a hobby?!

anyway, i guess i'm just trying to weigh the pros and cons of having lots of projects in the works. i guess you'd never get bored with a project, since you could always just pick something else up, but then you might not get many items finished at that rate either. i'm curious to know how other knitters feel about this!