Yeah, always have a look at the graph. At the beginning of every month it goes to 0. I usually, at the beginning of the month, i do missions, until i get to 2000~4000, then you have a buffer, even if at the end of the month a progrom happens, what you may want to skip or simply can't win.
And research a lot of stuff, gun almanac for example, this gives a lot of infamy. And set the right amount of brainers to the projects, if a project is on "good", i pull down the brainers until it is on average. So you do not waste braining power.