Amy Buckeridge is the woman behind the multi-award-winning Irish PR agency, Publicity Loft. With three young kids at home, a growing team to manage and a million balls in the air, Amy shares how she finds balance, time for self-care, and how she stays organised.
I’m Amy Buckeridge, founder of Publicity Loft. I have been self-employed for more than 20 years with Publicity Loft, established after the previous agency I had set up and sold. We specialise in luxury and lifestyle PR, helping businesses to grow and bringing brands to life through experiences, partnerships and digital collaborations. We work with a wide variety of brands such as NEXT, Trinny London, Dermalogica, Gucci Beauty, Cascata, BOSS, KIKO Milano, Skingredients, BURST, Chloe and Rimmel, to name a few. I am married to Darren and have three boys, so it is a busy household. We live in south county Kildare, so we have a good mix of country life and city energy!
Daily routines
My morning routine probably isn’t the most exciting! I have a habit of checking my phone first thing when I wake, client social media mentions and then news, monitoring in case there’s anything we’ll need to act on first thing or alert a client to. Not best practice but it does give me an overview of anything that’s going to change how the day looks and current plans in place. I don’t read emails first thing, as I believe one contentious email can set the tone for how your whole day unfolds and feels so I don’t go near emails until I am fully available to address them properly.
When the boys are in school, I generally like to be home until the school runs happen and that’s all about getting lunches ready and them out the door after the daily battle of breakfast. School days start at 7.30am and the last person is dropped for 8.50am, then I will go to the office. My own schedule works slightly differently in terms of morning routine. I have taken a greater interest in my own health journey over the past two years, so ordinarily I won’t eat until after 12 but I’m religious about my supplements – I’m currently taking Pharma Plus, FabU Wellness, Omegas, and NAD+, which has been a game changer for energy levels.
As I don’t live in Dublin, the commute could take 1.5 hours and on the way home could hit two hours, depending on traffic, so I tend to line up a lot of my phone calls for when I’m on the road to maximise time. You’ll find me stuck into a podcast on the early morning drive or swapping between radio stations to get a feel for what people are hearing while also shaping how we choose to communicate for brands.
I like to be in bed by about 10.30pm if I’m not working an evening event. Sleep tends to be a mixed bag, I can fall asleep so easily a lot of the time but sometimes my busy brain gets the better of me and I will try to get the thoughts out of my head and onto paper to attempt a disconnect. I need a solid eight hours of sleep to be at my best.
This rhythm brings stability in terms of knowing the kids have seen me in the mornings. When I’m travelling, I’m very much gone, so when I’m home, I like to be present for the morning routine. In terms of the work check-in, what comes up first can often shape the day or change the plans made, so it is important in gauging how the day will evolve.
Organising a busy brain
I would love to enjoy waking earlier to build in some dedicated time for myself to centre myself more and do more breath work. The calmer I am, the more beneficial it is for everyone around me, both at home and at work. I’m not a 5am girl, but I see the benefit in starting the day in a more grounded way if I could trade in those extra Zzzs. I would also like to create more space and time to dedicate more time to journaling. I started using The Head Plan Gratitude journal and I have found it transformative when it comes to being present, particularly in more challenging times. This in turn has opened the door to more regular journaling, which has proven very effective for organising my very busy brain.
My work day starts once I am in the car, as I usually have a list of catch-up calls to do on the commute. Once I’m at my desk, I’m a big believer in tackling the MITs first – Most Important Tasks; those jobs you will feel a huge sense of achievement when you get them out of the way. Then I will group smaller, similar tasks together. However, with the nature of my role, I’m often pulled into different meetings, strategy discussions or problem-solving, so it’s fair to say my to-do list is very fluid. A lot of my expertise lies in strategy building, identifying gaps and opportunities for businesses and brands and then building those out with the team to start implementing.
Our offices are located on Baggot Street Lower and I love the energy our work neighbourhood brings. However, post-Covid we made a decision to suit our team and business, so at present we generally all work from home on Mondays and Fridays and we are based in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. This has fostered a good routine with the team and allows us to feed off each other’s energies and creativity, which is so important in the job that we do.
A global mindset
Our team meetings always start with everyone sharing their magic moment of the week and it always makes me smile. I love to hear something the team feels they have achieved that makes them feel good or happy, so it’s something that rubs off on each other and we all get that feel-good factor. I also love the sense of achievement in closing out a week where we have done a good job, are on top of things and therefore have the space to be entirely present in our personal lives.
One of the things that has always appealed to me about working in PR is that no two days are ever really the same! From a meetings perspective, I’m very conscious of all the time we spend in meetings, we aren’t ‘doing’ and getting the job done so I have to be mindful of where I am needed to make a difference.
On calls with clients in the US, timing will depend on whether we are working on East Coast or West Coast timing. I am always looking to other markets to see what is being done differently and who is leading change globally as opposed to paying too much attention to what everyone else is doing in the local market. More recently, we have expanded our work offering to cover UK support and US concept offerings and as such, the days are longer but it’s an exciting time for the business.
Our team works with an external Neurocoach so we are always reviewing efficiencies and ways of work to improve how we show up and our pace regularly, so this is something that comes up in our resourcing daily.
Brainstorming for brand activations and experiences to bring their brand or launch to life is something I really enjoy and it always puts fire in my belly! I think the admin and processes side, when you are creatively incline,d is something I’ve always avoided over the years as it didn’t spark a deep sense of joy, but as time has gone on and the business has evolved, it has been something that I have had to dedicate energy to levelling up for the team around me. I am a firm believer that knowledge is power so I am always interested and keen to learn, which allows me to adapt in areas of the business that traditionally require more energy.
Managing energy levels
I talk a lot about recharging my batteries and I don’t always do it brilliantly, but at the moment, I have a huge amount going on in my home life and the reality is I am incredibly precious of who I share my energy with. I won’t work with people who don’t fit our ethos. I feel very strongly about surrounding yourself with good energy and similar values and a deep sense of respect. If they don’t align, it’s not going to be for us.
When work is particularly manic, I’m very lucky that my home life is very steady. My husband primarily works from home, so I have incredible help in the form of someone running our home life if I have to be fully in my work world. The team I surround myself with has been instrumental in keeping this energy buoyant and delivering great campaigns and results that feel fun. From a physical energy perspective, I have become far more conscious of what I am putting into my body and if it will aid or abet what I need to perform on a busy day or week. I am a huge forward planner. I plan my holidays out for the year, my kids’ calendars, everything that means these are things that don’t require further headspace during a busy period.
I am known to disappear on personal retreats annually – a time out, alone in an inspiring location that offers space to think, question things, challenge myself and carve out time for answers and ideas. It started about nine years ago at a conference in the US, and I have always been incredibly lucky that my husband has encouraged me to go, be present and take the time for myself. I get energy from people, from places, travel and creativity comes to me when I give it the space. You can never come up with your best ideas if your back is to the wall constantly.
Off-the-clock habits
My eating habits during a working week are not consistent! Our job is extremely social and we could have a week with events, whether that’s lunches or dinners or client meetings, so quite often if I’m at my desk, I will order directly to my desk so I can keep working. If I’m not organised or if I start my day without considering my food, I’m more likely to eat something less healthy and reach for rubbish, my biggest weakness is for jellies! You’ll always find a giant jar of jellies in our office for the sugar lows. Over the past two years, I have become far more aware of what’s fuelling my body as opposed to empty calories and understanding what I need and more importantly, what I really don’t. My water intake has room for improvement for sure, I’m known to be too fond of Coke Zero!
I generally stay in Dublin one night a week, whether it’s for an event or to catch up with press or industry friends, work late, and early start the following morning to get ahead of work but other than that, I am always racing home unless I’m travelling! It is my first port of call, always and my grounding happy place and a great sense of stability in what can be quite a chaotic business.
My nighttime routine revolves around skincare. No matter what I am doing or where I am, skincare is always my wind-down and has been for years. I’m extremely lucky that I work a lot in the beauty space and have expertise and knowledge on speed dial, so I’m definitely a total and utter beauty junkie! Caitriona Ryan and Jennifer Rock never see me wrong when it comes to solid advice and staying ahead of market trends. Institute of Dermatologists is my go-to for all things aesthetics and wider skin health. I don’t actually live in Dublin so quite often I will be squeezing in an 8am appointment at IDI before the work day starts. I’m a regular user of Polynucleotides and a big fan of IPL when it comes to the appearance and clarity of my skin. I often joke that if I died in the morning, my money will be on my face or my handbags!
I recently did a course of InMode Allure Lift treatments and I am loving the results. It tightens skin and stimulates collagen production with no downtime. I really needed to start to tighten my jawline and neck and next up is Morpheus8; the before and after results are phenomenal. From a facial perspective, I am obsessed with the new Dermalogica Luminfusion treatment which leaves you with instantly luminous skin and in terms of home use, I recently invested in the Sculpta by Dessee PRO and it combines electronic muscle stimulation, radio frequency and red LED light therapy so the aim of the game will be to be snatched in sticking with all of these!
In terms of skincare favourites, I have a lot depending on the time of year, weather, etc – I have relatively dry skin so I tend to lean into soothing, rich textures but equally making sure the retinol and SPF is part of the everyday mix. I use Elta MD, Skin Better for my daily serum and retinol, Dermalogica and Skingredients for cleansers and the Kinvara Rosehip Serum are sublime! If my skin barrier is impaired, I tend to introduce a mix of Sasta Skin Health and Elta MD Barrier Cream. SPF is my non-negotiable. I wear it 365 days of the year without fail and am currently alternating between Skingredients Skin Shield and Elta MD Clear UV SPF.
Dermalogica has a spectacular Phyto Nature Lifting Eye Cream that has been game-changing for my eye area and my favourite neck cream is Trinny London Elevator Neck Concentrate as I had really started to notice that I was starting to lose the elasticity in that area so it has become a part of my everyday routine. The other thing of late that I have introduced and really started focusing on is the backs of my hands… Every night I use Eucerin anti-pigment night cream with a generous amount of Skingredients Skin Good Fats layered on afterwards.
Last but not least is hair…I am lucky that sometimes I get to try and test products before they launch to market and over the past few months, I have been using Cascata Hairs Reset & Detox Scalp Shampoo, which gently exfoliates build-up and nourishes the scalp, so I’m now hooked on the benefit of scalp health in my routine!
The thing I most consistently do for myself is take that time for skincare. No matter where I am, it all comes with me, whether it is setting me up for the day or that wind-down moment in the evening, it helps me to disconnect and reset.
Ideal weekends
What my ideal days off look like and actually end up being can be two very different things, but also fulfilling in different ways. My ten-year-old is sports mad so the reality is you will probably find me on the side of a GAA pitch on Friday evening or on the sideline of a soccer match somewhere in Kildare on a Saturday morning. Weekends are sacred in terms of family time as life is very busy right now, but a match followed by a family brunch on a Saturday is usually a win. It is a frequent occurrence if we have a day with no schedule, we mightn’t even get dressed and have a pizza and movie evening.
My dream day off work is not having to rush anywhere and not feeling like I’m meeting a timeline to be somewhere or get back somewhere. It is hanging out with my husband, dinner with friends or family, really, that’s at the heart of anything we do as a unit, and I never need an excuse to plan travels. I think it’s one of my favourite things to do with my favourite people.
The power of a business coach
It’s fair to say you can’t be all things to all people so building a team that has my same work ethic, strong PL DNA has been essential and unwavering support at home is also key. Challenging times happen and my motto with my team that we practice and preach is family first and we try to make this work and support as best as possible. Sometimes real life happens and we have to prioritise what needs dedicated attention in that moment and time.
If I were to give some advice to fellow businesswomen, it would be to get yourself a business coach! It is transformative in how you show up for your business, how you show up in your personal life and how both coexist effectively. I also believe hugely in being open and honest in your approach across the board. The reality is that I have phenomenal support at home, which allows me to do what I do in the working world; without that, it would not be possible. Equally, without the right tribe around me in work, it wouldn’t allow me to step back to deal with the non-working world when needs be, so the people you choose in your life, both personally and professionally, set the scene for how everything unfolds.
Too many people present the illusion of having it all, but anyone who says they aren’t pedalling frantically behind the scenes is most likely not being truthful and I don’t believe that helps other women in business on their journey.
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