When you multitask, you believe you're being exceptionally productive, but really, you're fooling yourself. Each time you switch tasks, you have to backtrack a little and remind yourself where you are in the process and what's next. Invariably. you are spending twice as much time on parts of the task.

Karen Finerman

Don't waste even a minute magnifying your perceived inadequacies. You can't do it all. Why berate yourself for not achieving the impossible?

Karen Finerman

achieving-the-impossible waste achieve

Serendipity is nice, but hoping for luck and the magic of happenstance shouldn't be an excuse for a lack of proactivity. I had to learn for myself that waiting isn't a life plan.

Karen Finerman

serendipity nice waiting

When I was 15 years old I read an article about Ivan Boesky, the well-known takeover trader - turned out years later it was all on inside information! But before that came to light he was very successful, very flamboyant. And I thought, "This is what I want to do". So I'm 15 years old, I decide I'm going to Wall Street.

Karen Finerman

wall light successful

Never have anyone else carry your luggage. Pack only what you need.

Karen Finerman

luggage packs needs

It's OK to have a plan, to invest in your future - for your financial security, your love life, your personal fulfillment, and even your happiness. To have personal happiness as a stated goal doesn't detract from it if you get there.

Karen Finerman

love-life financial goal

I have been able to have a family and to dedicate quality time to my two sets of twins and my husband, as well as to serve on the boards of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and Montefiore Medical Center.

Karen Finerman

medical quality family time

Every day, turn off your phone/email for some part of the day.

Karen Finerman

every-day your some day

As a teenager, rather than setting myself on a course to pursue fame (quite common growing up in L.A., the entertainment capital of the world), happiness, fulfillment, and spiritual enlightenment (also quite common), I skipped right on to trying to be successful. 'Let's just get on with it,' I felt. 'Onward' became my motto.

Karen Finerman

myself motto happiness world

Companies are always being bought and sold. The markets are always moving; you have to be on top of your position. And in the U.S., the market is never closed for more than three days. The only time the market was ever closed was 9/11. I think it may have been closed the whole week.

Karen Finerman

never think you time

I never want to have to ask my husband for money. Never! That's incomprehensible to me. Would he have preferred that I change my name? Probably. But that's OK!

Karen Finerman

name me money change

I've seen women afraid to stretch for things. They avoid opportunities they don't feel qualified for yet. Instead, they should grab risky opportunities that will force them to grow on the job and learn to do it.

Karen Finerman

grow feel job women

Women should learn from men to compartmentalize. It's a great skill that some women have naturally but others have to practice. The goal is to keep one area of your life that might not be going well from causing unnecessary disruptions in another area.

Karen Finerman

great women men life

Maintaining boundaries is hard. That's why I strongly prefer the physical separation of work and home.

Karen Finerman

separation hard work home

I was raised a Calvinist. You might think you know what that means, but let me explain it the way my mother preached it to my three sisters and me back when we were at home: 'I buy my girls Calvin Klein clothes, so that's all they know. Then, when they graduate from college, they have to figure out how to pay for them themselves.'

Karen Finerman

me you mother home

I wanted to get out in the world, have a great job, make my mark, and see how far I could go. And I wanted to make good on the philosophy my mother drilled into us with all the subtlety of a Lady Gaga performance. I got it loud and clear. I would need to succeed, and then I could possibly be happy.

Karen Finerman

be-happy good mother happy

As a working mother, the last thing you need is to be hard on yourself. As a stay-at-home mother, the last thing you need is to be hard on yourself. As a twenty something with no job prospects or life partner in sight, the last thing you need is to be hard on yourself.

Karen Finerman

yourself you mother life

Protect yourself like you would your cubs - as a grown woman, you're no one's cub anymore.

Karen Finerman

your woman yourself you

I remember the absolute, joyous freedom I felt when I first went to college: I had no bedtime, no curfew, no rules - I loved it. I was in charge. I couldn't believe I didn't have to answer to anyone.

Karen Finerman

loved freedom remember believe

I have spent much of my life where the boys are, first as a tomboy and then on Wall Street. Growing up, I loved every and any sport. I was frustrated by girls who didn't, so I spent most of my afternoons with the boys.

Karen Finerman

street loved my-life life

Working from home as a mother is the worst of everything. You don't have clear boundaries. The kids can get used to you going to work; they can't get used to you ignoring them. And work sometimes gets the message you're not as committed.

Karen Finerman

you mother work home