Exactly!
I have the tendency to want to keep making things "louder," and by the time I've got a decent arrangement, my levels are all over the place. Rather than attempt to fight the urge to increase the volume in my DAW, I crank my headphones/monitors.
Specifically, I'll start with my kick hitting around -12 dB. Then I simply increase my audio interface volume until I have a pleasant thump coming through my monitors and headphones. Then, with every instrument/hit I add to the song, I try to keep each respective channel below my kick's -12db (either via channel volume fader, compression etc.) Even though my levels are quite low, my audio interface output has the track cranking–cutting off my urge to turn up volume faders or compression gains.
What ends up happening is that my master output has plenty of headroom. So I'll then lower my audio interface volume and add an instance of Ozone or AdLimiter to my master out to give me a rough idea of how the master will sound. This little workflow enhancement has proven to be extremely valuable to me.
Cheers!