Louisa Daubney, Your Time Design Coach
I’m Louisa Daubney and I’m a Time Design Coach
Since leaving my 9-5 job working for a much loved UK charity, I have retrained as a personal performance coach. I work with overwhelmed female solopreneurs who are struggling to build a structure to their day to get through their never ending to-do list.
My clients are thoughtful and highly motivated women who want to reclaim more of their time, energy and attention to focus on the things that matter most to them.
They’re fed up spending money on expensive planners which leave them feeling guilty when they don’t use them. Time management books don’t speak to what they actually need from their day. They’re ready to get 1:1 support to design a structure for their day that really works for them. And I think that female business owner might be you.
Modern life often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Becoming deeply frustrated with how I was choosing to spend my time after leaving my 9-5 role and retraining as a personal performance coach, along with establishing my business, I began a journey to master the art of how to structure my day and make it work more effectively for me.
I want to support my clients to reclaim more time, energy (emotional and physical) and money for the things that matter most to you.
You’ve probably been told that, in order to achieve your goals, you need to:
Get up at 5am to get ahead – the early bird catches the worm!
Multi-task to get more done – keep all those tabs open.
Power on through and skip meals/breaks/time with loved ones – hustle, hustle, hustle.
Create a lengthy to do list to get on top of everything you need to do – if you haven’t spent an hour writing your task list at the start of every day, you’ve already failed.
Follow the ‘golden rules’ of time management to solve the feelings of overwhelm – the experts know you better than you do.
If you’ve tried these things and “failed”, it’s NOT your fault. Designing your day, your way is totally different.
What you actually need to do to achieve your goals is understand, deeply, what makes you tick:
How you work with time
What actions (if you do them consistently) will make a difference to the success of your business
What you need to keep your energy and motivation levels topped up
What brings you alive outside of work e.g. your passion projects
How often you get distracted and what helps keep you focused
I’ll support you to design a day (before, during and after work) that sparks joy and creativity rather than anxiety, frustration, and fear of burnout – step by step. To have space for creativity. To find your focus and flow. To manage your energy and creativity. And, ultimately, to get you spending more time doing what you love, without burning out.
No quick fix solutions, no complicated and expensive time management systems or tools, no beating yourself up for not being ‘productive’. We’re all about nourishing, fulfilling and purposeful days around here.
My Time Design Approach has 5 pillars for more fulfilment and less frazzle
UNDERSTANDING
from a place of self compassion, your own personal relationship with time
CREATING
clarity about your goals e.g. for well-being, business and passion projects
STRUCTURING
your day to focus on the actions that will help you make progress towards your goals
DEVELOPING
self-discipline to support you to stick to these actions and to a healthy set of routines, habits and boundaries
REFLECTING
on your progress, refining your habits and practices and, celebrating your successes!
I’ve always been fascinated by the way things work and how to build more ease into systems and processes so that they flow better and ultimately save time and effort.
To give you an example… I love to travel and would often spend two weeks in the summer travelling to Africa or Asia. About 15 years ago I booked to go on a group holiday to Tanzania where we stayed with a wonderful Maasai community. We went on safari and saw lions, zebras, elephants and giraffes in their natural environment. During the trip, we were also put to work – creating the solid foundations to a new teacher’s accommodation block.
As we started work with the local team, I soon realised that most of the group were being given the same job, to carry a bucket of sand to a larger pile where the concrete would be made. I suggested that we form a line so that instead of each person walking to the pile, we passed a bucket along the line. The result – less walking to and fro carrying a fairly heavy bucket and the job was done in half the time, with ease and less effort.
I get a real buzz out of spotting inefficiencies and helping colleagues, friends, loved ones and clients alike to bring a greater sense of ease and flow to tasks, processes and daily schedules.
So that they come away saying: I feel like a load has been taken off (which was literally the case in Tanzania!), my day has more focus and flow, and my brain isn’t having to work quite so hard to help me get through everything I need to do.
Since becoming a personal performance coach, I have loved discovering more about the neuroscience behind how to look after all of our ‘self’ i.e. our brains, our bodies and our souls, through finding more focus and flow to our days, taking regular breaks for our mental, physical and spiritual well-being, and feeding our soul by carving out time for passion projects. All so that we don’t burn out…
Whether you’re just starting out on your side hustle, moving to a 4 day week, or becoming a fully fledged solopreneur or freelancer, or you’ve been running your business for a few years now, we will work together to design your day, your way, to increase your sense of fulfilment and minimise the frazzle.
A bit more about me
- I’m a Virgo – often known for being perfectionists – I’m now in recovery.
- I love buying books about self-development but I’m not always so good at reading them!
- I’m thinking seriously about getting a dog so any advice on breeds to consider, let me know.
- I enjoy gardening mindfully every morning and chatting to my neighbours whilst I’m out in the garden.
- I have a sound sensitivity called misophonia which means that I find it challenging to be around sounds like someone biting their nails or using a clicky keyboard when they type.
- I like nothing better than eating a large bowl of pasta whilst watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy when my partner goes into work.
- Watching the local hedgehogs going into our hedgehog house brings me enormous joy.
