Yeah, thank you for joining me today. Uh I'm Tara Casati. Um I lead fintech Business engineering team at meter um that power various payment experiences on our family of apps, um Facebook messenger, whatsapp, and Instagram.Um If you have ever paid or got paid on our platforms, it definitely have my team signature on it. So I'm here today on a topic called um organizing Your Day for a sustainable career. Um As women in tech, we share a common goal of pursuing a successful career while juggling our personal lives and it's not an easy feat and I have certainly faced my fair share of challenges along the way. And today I want to share my journey and the strategies that helped me uh with you all. Um So to get started. So I am a woman executive leader with 20 years of experience in the software industry. Started my career as an engineer. I grew to become a senior engineer, staff, principal engineering manager, senior manager, director, and head of engineering. What I realized is sustaining success over the long term requires a different mindset. Um It's more like a marathon than a sprint and pacing yourself is key to crossing that finish line women in tech today face a lot of unique challenges already, a lack of representation, bias, discrimination, work-life balance struggles, one thing or the other causes them to leave the industry at a higher rate.

Hence, it's very critical for us to focus not just on achieving success but also on sustaining it. Um So let me share with you some concrete strategies that have helped me maintain balance and fulfillment in other areas of my life while also managing highly impactful roles. So the first one I have is sleep. I know it sounds simple. You might even ask me Tara career, you want us to sleep in order to succeed in our careers. That's silly. Well, getting enough sleep has many advantages that are critical for a sustained success. It took me a long time to establish this habit. I aim for eight hours of sleep every night and I protect that time by blocking it off on my calendar. Um The challenge that I struggle with most is putting my phone down on time out of many things I have tried. What worked for me is using technology to combat with technology addiction. I use certain apps like downtime on my I OS app offscreen is another app to turn off my phone during my sleep hours. Um Getting good sleep consistently helped me actually in other areas of my life, like having more energy to spare during my day able to stay calmer and grounded when pressure mounts, staying more attentive and making better decisions.

Um And when I'm at my best during the day, actually sleep well, during the night thinking that I gave it my best shot and the cycle repeats. So it does have a flywheel effect. So the second strategy I have is focus. So outside sleep. Now, I have like 16 hours to balance between my work and personal life and work has the tendency to spill over and consume all the 16 hours if I allow it. So how do I constrain it to just the 8 to 10 hours max? Um Firstly, I set aside time to strategize and prioritize a handful of top priorities. Then I set aside focus hours in my calendar for executing on those priorities. Then everything else comes lower in priority if it can be done great. Otherwise, by default, it's a no and it's, I know it's hard to say no. Um But when you see time is limited, then you will become more strategic, more creative. You'll start to ask all those ways like why is this important? Why now, why mean? Um So definitely you, I mean, building that ability to say no is crucial. Um Another big challenge I struggle with is dealing with unplanned and urgent work like escalations, production issues. Last minute, top down requests and it's common there is no way to prevent it. The best way is to plan for it. Um, I block some free time in my calendar every day to deal with unplanned chaos, call it as chaos time. And I also have a weekly reflection point.

I block my Friday afternoons to reflect upon my week, write on what's going well, what's not and find strategies to improve and there's no way to say done and dusted. It's a continuous process of continuously improving this, um, and staying on top of your work priorities. So now that leaves me 6 to 8 hours for rest of my life's priorities, like family, kids chores, et cetera, et cetera. Wait, we heard this um put on your own oxygen mask before taking care of others. And that's what my third strategy is, self-care. This one is often overlooked, but it's just so important for our well-being and productivity. And I start my day with some yoga and meditation. I also spend time in the morning, reading and staying up to date on the industry's trends together. These two habits helped me start my day with positivity, like possibilities and a bigger perspective on life. Uh It took me a long time again to establish these habits, but like finding a buddy or a peer group can help you stay on track and get you motivated. Key aspect of self care. Um I want to highlight is learning to ask for help. As women, we often take a lot of pressure of doing everything by ourselves doing them perfectly like taking care of kids, cooking, planning vacations. The truth is we can't do it all alone and we need not be perfect all the time. It's important to ask for help when you need it. It can come within your family or from hiring somebody else.

When you, if you can afford it, negotiate with your partner, delegate your chores, they can all free up some valuable time and energy that you can use for yourself, like for self care or for the passions and activities that gives you joy. Um And with all that said, I want to share a typical day in my calendar with you. As you can see, my date starts with self-care activities uh followed by some A PAC team meetings. I have a global role and I have my teams in a PC and have some parental duties. Then I have this free hours sitting in my beginning and ending block of my core work day that does give me flexibility to move things around and deal with any urgent un planned work that I talked about. Um a front load my day with work. So my evening is gradually slowing down with family time, dinner time and some quiet time. And I have also this free hour in the night too that gives me flexibility. Now, whatever that life throws at you again, not every day is such a perfect day. Picture a perfect day. Like what what I'm displaying here. But when I look back over the course of a year, 80% of the days were able to be on the dot So it, it did matter to me.

Uh So to wrap up, I challenge all of you to take a moment today to reflect on your own routines and how they align with your goals for a sustainable career success. Think about what changes you can make to prioritize your health, relationships and personal development. And lastly, don't forget to be kind to yourself along the way. So thank you for joining this session with me. Um So if you found it helpful, I would love to hear your comments and feedback. And if you want to connect with me later, the best way is my linkedin, I'm active there. I will respond to everyone. I know we only have one minute if you have any questions. Um I will definitely be able to, oh, how many hours do you wake up before? Um So it's four hours. So I, I get up at um 5 a.m. So not, I'm a five, I'm in the 5 a.m. club, but that's me. You can always do your own personal um routine that works for you. Thank you all.