Stop Text Flow In One Text Box with Multiple Columns

I created a text box with 4 columns. I want to be able to write in the columns independently from each other but the text flows from the first column into the next. So I can't control the formatting of the text in each column. I've found discussions on this forum that talk about unthreading text boxes, but since this is one text box, I can't figure out how to stop the text from flowing. I'd love some help from anyone else that knows how to stop this. Thanks!

Here are some screenshot below so that you see what I'm looking at. I just want to copy and paste so that I can have the same format of # and then copy for each column.

I would like each box to look like the first one.

This is what it's doing instead... the text just flows continuously.

Thanks in advance for anyone's help!