Moderari Studio · a wellbeing lab
This is where I take what I know about wellbeing, focus and regulated work and turn it into tools, guides and small experiments you can actually use. Some are finished. Some are still in the oven. All of them start from the same place: you don't need to push harder. You need the right conditions.
Jeni Sanderson, founder and chief tinkerer
Hello
For 25 years I worked in marketing and communications. Capable, committed, and quietly exhausted.
Focus was a daily wrestle and overwhelm was the background hum. I assumed I just needed more discipline, so I bought the planners. All of them. They didn't help.
Then a late ADHD diagnosis gave a name to something that had always been there: a nervous system that processes the world differently, working inside a world of work that was never designed with it in mind.
The thing that finally helped wasn't another system. It was regulation. Having a steady presence alongside me while I worked. Being accompanied into focus rather than forced into it. And that changed how I think about wellbeing completely.
So I went off and did an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology to understand why it worked (distinction, since you ask). Now I build things that put the science and the lived experience in the same room, and I share them here.
I've also spent a long time thinking about the other side of wellbeing at work: how people get told things, how they're listened to, and whether any of it actually lands. A brilliant idea that nobody engages with doesn't help anyone. So I build with that in mind.
Moderari is Latin for to regulate, to keep in balance, to guide with care. It's the name of this studio. It's also, if I'm honest, my permanent to-do list.
What I believe
I don't think people struggle because they lack discipline. I think they struggle because their conditions don't support them. So everything in the lab is made from the same few ingredients.
Wellbeing is structural. If the setup is wrong, no amount of grit will fix it.
Focus is biological. A brain on high alert can't think clearly, however much you want it to.
Community restores capacity. Working alongside someone steady does things a to-do list never will.
Sustainable work outperforms urgency over time. Every time. Boring, but true.
What fills you up is specific to you. A walk, a person, a particular kind of quiet. The best recipes are personal ones.
For the people who look after people at work
Wellbeing ideas live or die on how they're communicated. So everything in the lab gets tested against two questions: does it help one person, and could it work across a team without becoming another initiative people quietly ignore?
The tools invite people in rather than asking them to comply.
If it needs a training session to explain it, it won't get used.
Private by default, so nobody feels watched.
The lab
Everything here started as a question I couldn't leave alone. Some of it is ready to use today. Some of it is still proving. And some of it is an idea scribbled on the back of a school letter.
For when your brain has too many tabs open.
Type out everything on your plate and everything on your mind. Sera sorts it, separates the tasks from the worries, finds the quick wins and hands you back one clear next step. One free session, no account needed.
Try Sera free →A quick way for anyone to get out of their head and back to one clear next step before a heavy week. No app to install, no onboarding, no friction.
From The Focused Woman Collective.
A gentle course for women, particularly those with ADHD, who are tired of fighting their own brain. Nervous system first, small doable steps, and none of the shame that usually comes with productivity advice.
Visit the Collective →The ideas that help one person focus (nervous system first, small doable steps) are the same ones that make workloads, meetings and deadlines kinder for whole teams.
For the rejections, the silence and the waiting.
Eleven evidence-based positive psychology tools for anyone job hunting right now. 14 pages, about 14 minutes to read, and no email address required.
Read the guide →Useful for anyone supporting people through a restructure, redundancy or a long job search. Free to share, and nobody has to hand over an email address.
Your recipe for feeling whole.
A personal wellbeing recipe tool. It helps you work out what genuinely fills you up (specifically, not generically), plan it into your life, keep it going when things are steady, and find your way back to it when they're not. Built on PERMA, Broaden and Build and the Five Ways to Wellbeing.
Tell me when it's ready →Gives people a shared language for what keeps them well, without asking anyone to disclose more than they want to.
A pressure check for the people who carry everything.
For leaders who hold a lot and rarely get to put it down. Answer an honest set of questions about the pressure you're under and the conditions around you, and get a clear read on where you are, with practical guidance you can come back to. Self-guided and completely confidential.
Back soon in its new formBuilt for the people at the top who rarely get asked how they're doing. Confidential by design, because leaders won't be honest about pressure otherwise.
A quick, honest way for a team to see whether its conditions help people do good work, or quietly wear them down.
Practical, unfussy guides for small businesses that want to get the basics right without a big budget or an HR department.
I'm still working out what shape this takes. I just know it needs to exist.
Things on the bench might become something, or they might not. If one of them makes you think "oh, I'd use that", I'd love to hear.
Lab notes
Want to know what comes out of the lab next? I send an occasional email when something new is ready to try. No daily emails, no hustle, and easy to leave.
Get the lab notes