Wellness Tip:

Spring Clean Your Routine

Spring has officially arrived. 🌸 It’s easy to keep running on winter autopilot without realizing it, but our routines should shift along with the seasons.

Take a few minutes this week to spring-clean your daily routines and ask:

• What still feels good and worth keeping?
• What feels heavy, slow, or out of sync right now?
• What could feel lighter, simpler, or more energizing?

Look for small, practical swaps, like a lighter, fresher breakfast, moving your workout earlier (or outdoors), or shifting from cosy evening habits to something more uplifting. 

The environment around us is changing, with more light and warmth, so our routines are easier to shape. Try using this change in season as a reset point for your behavior, and let us know how you go!

Routine Breakdown

Arianna Cerrito, Senior Business Leader and Board Advisor & Founder of StartUpAndRise

The Routine of a Senior Leader Who Works With Her Energy

Arianna Cerrito says her routine has evolved with age, responsibility, and self-awareness. “It’s consistent in intention, but it adapts with daylight, seasons and workload.”

The Routine:

• Awake early, but slowly (first 30–45 minutes). “I wake up early, but I don’t rush myself into action. I hydrate, move gently around the house, sometimes sit with my thoughts, sometimes read a few pages.”
• Respecting light and seasonality. “I deliberately don’t exercise in the dark. Even though I generally prefer to work out in the morning, I wait until natural light is up. In winter, that means movement comes later. In summer, my body naturally asks for earlier exercise and adapts quickly.”
• Writing everything down, then distilling. “Once my mind feels properly switched on, I write lists. Very long ones. Everything that’s on my mind goes down on paper. Only after that do I highlight what actually matters for the day.”
• Unstructured strategic thinking, by design. “I don’t block a rigid ‘strategy hour’. I have enough discipline to trust that if I create space in my week, my mind will naturally return to the questions that matter.” 
• Deep work when focus feels settled. “Once those elements are in place, I move into deep work: strategy, writing, mentoring preparation. It’s not clock-driven. It happens when focus feels stable rather than forced.”
• Closing the working day. “At the end of my working day, I briefly review my list and amend what truly matters for the following day. Once that’s done, I mentally close the workday.”

Why it works:

• Whether you wake slowly or jump straight into action depends on what works best for you. Arianna says her body wakes up before her mind does. “Giving myself permission to arrive slowly means I don’t drag mental fog into the rest of the day.”
• Arianna says aligning movement with daylight gives her steadier energy and longer focus. This may be because exposure to morning light suppresses melatonin, making us more alert. 
• As Arianna explains, “I use lists to empty my head. Highlighting what matters comes after, once the noise is out.” There’s science behind this. Getting everything down on paper reduces mental load and helps “close the loop” on unfinished tasks (aka, the Zeigarnik effect), so your brain isn’t constantly trying to hold onto everything at once.
• Focus comes in waves. Tuning into your natural focus peaks makes deep work feel easier and more effective, helping you tap into flow instead of forcing concentration when it’s not there.
• Says Arianna of closing her workday: “Clarifying tomorrow allows me to stop thinking about today. It’s the line that lets me rest without loose ends.”

Arianna adds that this routine is definitely NOT about perfection. “It’s about knowing myself well enough to stop fighting my own rhythm. Earlier in my career, I pushed through that instinctively. Now, with more responsibility and longer horizons, I’ve learned that the quality of my thinking matters far more than the volume of my output.”

Working this way means some days look quieter than others, and that’s intentional. When I respect my energy and close the day properly, I show up the next morning clearer, calmer, and more capable of making the kinds of decisions my work actually requires. Over time, that has proved far more sustainable than any rigid routine I’ve ever tried.