My name is Alexandra Robertson. I am the sep of growth at visor help visor help is leading the way to help access starting with our free prescription discount card focused on women families and caregivers in the community.And today I'm here to talk to you about building your career as women wives, moms in the tech space all while working remotely. I'm so excited to be here today because this is a topic that is truly something I'm passionate about. I myself am a wife, a mother of two beautiful girls, Adeline and Kinsley, an executive, a sister, a caregiver friend, problem solver. And there's so many other hats like you, I'm sure that you wear on a daily basis without even thinking about it. And I also work from home and have been a remote executive for the last 5.5 years before that. I spent my career at high growth start-ups, most of which were venture back. I worked in both Silicon Valley where I was able to go through an acquisition with the Fortune 35 company. Then moved back in the high growth start ups in Silicon Valley this time helping my new company, open up their New York City office and grow that team. After having my first daughter, Adeline, though I realized I wanted to grow my career, but not necessarily in the traditional way, I wanted to help solve more complex and challenging problems. And ultimately, I wanted my day to look different.

I found my current company that allowed me to grow in my career and work from home. And I've spent these last five plus years figuring out what's worked for me and how I could be successful and what success even meant before I get into all those points though. I do wanna give what I feel is a really important caveat, especially in today's age where you see women on social media seemingly doing it all and doing it all well and it's that I am in no way perfect. So what I share with you today, most of the time works great, but there are times where I might fail in an area I'm human and growth is a process. And so it's something that I strive to continuously get better at over the course of these next two minutes. My goal is for you to take away some nuggets of information that you can use in your everyday life, both personally and professionally because I think it's important that we show up for ourselves as best as we can every day to move the ball forward. So my first point being in tech and especially as women is that it requires mental and physical stamina. Both of which mean you'll have to constantly step outside of your comfort zone.

Now, I imagine that if you're joining me here today to listen about how to balance work from home life and grow in your career, you're willing to get uncomfortable. But outside of being uncomfortable, it also means investing in yourself in ways that will help you with physical and mental stamina. So after some trial and error, for me, what that looks like is meditation or movement through workouts, journaling, shifting my day to start before the rest of the house is up or sometimes it's giving myself time before the day started to just work on getting work done or outlining what's important aspects of that day or week ahead.

It might look like all of these in one morning if I'm really on it or sometimes it's just one. But I do try to do at least one every day so that I can continue to build up my physical and emotional stamina because I do believe it helps create a foundation for myself when I'm challenged in work or life. Our life is in a sprint. So I highly encourage you to spend time and invest in yourself and that flows nicely into my next point. The B word, probably not the one you're thinking I'm talking about boundaries. So setting boundaries, especially as a remote employee, a remote executive when you're managing teams remotely or growing at scale or trying to move up in your career, they're especially important because if you don't set boundaries, you get the other B word burnout boundaries, protect your energy and time.

It involves things like having your own space. I think that's one of the first things I realized when I started working from home is that having your own space is truly important. As simple as it sounds. It's like getting into your car to head into the office or to take public transportation. It allows you to switch gears into work mode. And the same is true for having your own workspace. It means that you can also be there for things that matter like your kids parade because you can be a little more flexible in your schedule and get work done after normal hours if you need to. So you can enjoy those little moments. It means owning your schedule. And I can't emphasize how critical this is time block so that you have dedicated work and are constantly contact switching all day or block, family time in your calendar. I took that tip from my husband and really like it. So if you're sitting in this room and have a family or about to have one, it's ok to lean into that. Like I said, by blocking time in your mornings or evenings when you're simply not available for work calls. Because burnout we know happens all too often in tech because we're rapidly building in an almost a constant state of stretching ourselves, which in the long run, if we continue to do that, we might lose a little of who we are in the process.

So create and keep your boundaries. The next point is really around being present. And this to me is really critical, especially working remotely where the line between work and home life blur a little. And because work is such a large chunk of our day. And to be honest, this is something that can blend for me too. If I'm not careful, it looks like uh me getting back to work as soon as I've got the girls home from school or making an early evening work call to a team member because maybe they're in a different time zone. But what it doesn't do for me is it doesn't allow me to connect with my girls or my husband if I don't have that time to switch off, you know, my old and a my oldest Adeline just last week asked me to play a game that she just recently received. And now I was gearing up to pack again for work travel and what was a really busy month. And honestly, there were probably 10 things that I could have done in that moment. But my husband helped bring me back to the present moment by saying she just really wants to spend time with you. So she eventually asked me hours later if I wanted to play and I immediately said yes. And we laughed and giggled and she just loved it.

And so did I, and honestly, it was probably 15 minutes before she ended up wanting to move on to something else. But I could see the impact that had on her. And I was so grateful that I paused to make that connection. So I recommend you try to be present when you're with your partner or family. Because the one thing I can tell you about work is that it will always be there. It'll be there once your kids are asleep or when your partner is winding down for the night. So for the small window of time you get during the week with the mornings and evenings spend it focused on them, especially with small kids. They only ask for your attention for so long. And I've caught myself really recognizing this recently and absolutely taking it up on them when they ask where before I might have pushed it off. So make that connection because being mindful and present is an effort. But it gives you the space needed to work from home and recharge and make some memories. My last point is all about N MA S or what I call needle moving activities. Most of the people who work will spend their time, uh 80% of their time on things that don't ultimately move the needle for the company now, don't get me wrong, they have to get them done.

It's the mundane task or the little details or projects that end up eating a whole lot of your time, but don't make a big impact. So focus on N MA s and take control of your time by not getting pulled into too much of those trivial things. That's incredibly important because there are only a few growth lovers in a company and finding those so that you can spend 80% of your time on needle moving activities to have a big impact and only 20% on the task that still need to get done. But aren't especially important that will help you move up in your career. There are only 24 hours in a day. This is, you know, not a new quote and it's how we choose to use that time that matters. So that means managing your time and calendar very carefully. It means you'll need to be on the same page with your team, constantly communicating and your c suite on the goals that you're working towards and yes in tech or any hyper start up, that'll mean shifting priorities or projects all while knowing exactly where you're going so that you can make sure your efforts are focused there working closely with my team and cross functionally to ask questions to understand the big priorities, what the timeline is and what the requirements are clearly and what's important to get done now versus what's urgent, that can create clarity to know what the efforts I'm making have a big impact on.

It also allows everyone to be on the same page and know who's responsible for what piece we also continuously evaluate the priorities. So I encourage you to pick a time frame, whether it's quarterly, monthly or maybe even sooner, depending on what team you're on. So you can all stay focused and moving in the right direction. Spending my time this way helps me align myself with my company's initiatives so that I can focus on moving up and getting done what I wanna get done so that I can step sprint stretch and repeat successfully. Thank you.