92. The 4 Management Systems I Wish I Learned in School: Emotional, Financial, Time, and Energy
- Brittany Miller
- Apr 1
- 16 min read
Updated: Oct 18
I love learning. I always have. I was the kid who cried when my parents told me we were going on vacation because I’d miss school. But the older I get, the more I see a glaring gap in our education system: we weren’t taught practical management systems that actually make adult life work—especially if you’re juggling a business, a household, and children. In this post I’m going to unpack the four management systems I wish I had learned in school and share what I've learned (sometimes the hard way) about putting them to work: emotional regulation, financial management, time management, and energy management (including how to work with your cycle).
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by parenting, running a business, or just being “adult," this is for you. These four management systems are interconnected; when you strengthen one, the others get easier. I’ll explain how they fit together, share the specific tools I use (QuickBooks, Profit First principles, Pomodoro, breathwork, and more), and give you step-by-step actions to start implementing immediately.
If we haven't met yet, I’m Brittany, an online marketing strategist for female entrepreneurs. I teach women how to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality through smart, actionable marketing strategies that get them seen, loved, and paid. Whether you’re eager to DIY your way to success or hire professionals to help you along the way–my goal is to make sure you walk away with the clarity you need to see the results you desire and build a life you love.
Table of Contents
Why these management systems matter (and why schools don’t teach them)
When I went to business school, I thought I’d be taught how to run my own business. I learned a lot about costs and theory—and not much about how to actually manage the day-to-day realities of running a small business while raising kids. We were expected to “figure it out.” And so many of us do—through expensive lessons, burnout, and trial and error.
That’s why I want to be explicit about these four management systems. Schools often assume the basics are common sense or a parent’s responsibility to teach their children. But parents aren’t always trained either. Emotional regulation, financial literacy, professional time management, and energy awareness are learnable skills. When you build systems in these areas, life gets kinder, your business grows more sustainably, and your family benefits so I'm sharing my take on their 4 management systems so you can skip figuring it out the hard wa like I had to. Let's dive in.
Quick roadmap: The four management systems
Emotional management: How to regulate your emotions and teach your children to do the same so you can respond, not react.
Financial management: Personal and business money tools—budgeting, debt strategies, revenue streams, and systems for clarity.
Time management: Realistic scheduling, audits, and strategies that account for your life (including parenting unpredictability).
Energy management (including cycle awareness): How to manage your energy levels, not just your time—sleep, meals, movement, and aligning work with hormonal phases.
These management systems aren’t theoretical—every one of them has practical steps you can start today. Read on for what worked for me, what I still struggle with, and how to build sustainable routines that honour your life and your business.
1. Emotional management: Regulate so you can lead
Let’s start with the one no one taught me in school: emotional regulation. As a mom of four (now five), a business owner, and someone who has done therapy, I can tell you that emotional management influences everything. From client emails that trigger panic to nightly meltdowns about underwear (trust me, I have a 4-year-old who will scream about underwear), emotions make or break our ability to show up.
Emotional management is a management system just like finances or time. It’s about building routines, tools, and habits that help you stay present, calm, and effective. When you have systems for your emotions, you’re better positioned to be a leader in both your family and your business.
Why emotional management is a system, not a feeling
Emotional regulation isn’t “being happy all the time.” It’s a predictable set of practices you use to process feelings, reduce reactivity, and make better decisions. In my house, when kids are in tears from the moment they walk in the door until bedtime, emotion-driven chaos bleeds into my work. When I have a plan—breathwork, grounding, or a quick reset routine—I handle both the kids and my business with more clarity.
Tools and techniques I use (and teach my kids)
Breathwork: Slow, deliberate breathing is a reset button. I teach my kids a simple four-count inhale, six-count exhale to calm sensory overload. I learned this from Ashley Livingstone on my podcast—her approach to breathwork for kids is practical and immediate. For my younger kids I like the birthday candle breathwork example, it's simple for them to understand.
Therapy: Therapy gave me vocabulary for my triggers and techniques to prevent catastrophizing. Even a few sessions can accelerate your emotional learning.
Movement: Exercise releases stored tension and helps me avoid spirals of self-criticism. On days I’m short on time, a quick 10-minute walk or mini dance party in the kitchen still changes everything. It's a way to physically shake things off and recenter myself.
Grounding practices: Sunlight, being outside, and tactile activities calm me. I prioritize outdoor time for myself and the kids when emotions are high. Nature is the best medicine and reset tool, it's free and always available!
Connection: Reaching out to a friend or accountability partner when I feel triggered helps me reframe and avoid panic-mode decisions.
Pause and label: Once you can label your emotion (“I’m feeling overwhelmed/scared/ashamed”), the intensity often reduces. Say it out loud or journal for 2–3 minutes. This practice is also helping my kids learn to identify their emotions which reduces the number of meltdowns they experience from feelings they can't explain.
How to turn emotional skills into a system
Create a predictable reset routine you do when an emotional spike happens. Mine is: 30–60 seconds of breathwork → a brisk walk outside → 2 minutes of journaling. Repeat as needed.
Teach your kids mini-reset tools. Breathwork, a calm corner, or a short sensory bin helps them return to baseline faster.
Schedule regular therapist sessions or check-ins with a coach. Prevention is better than reaction.
Keep a visible list of grounding practices (on the fridge or phone) to use when everyone is stressed.
Emotional management is the foundation for how you respond under pressure. If you want changes in your business or family life, start here—this system informs your decisions, your productivity, and your ability to show up kindly for others.
2. Financial management: Numbers are not the enemy
If I had one complaint about business school, it’s this: they taught me how much it costs to run a business but not how to manage it. Personal finance education is thin, and business finance support for new entrepreneurs is nearly nonexistent. I’ve watched clients and friends sink into consumer debt, fail to diversify income, or keep doing work that loses money because they didn’t have the knowledge or systems to see it clearly.
Financial management is a management system. It’s a set of practices, tools, and routines you use to understand where money comes from, where it goes, and how to make that flow work for you instead of against you.
Where schools fall short
We aren’t taught these practical money skills: how to price services, how to calculate mortgage interest, how to compare insurance quotes, or how credit card interest accumulates. We don’t learn how to budget for life events (maternity leave, for example) or how to diversify revenue so an income dip doesn’t ruin everything. The reality is many households carry large consumer debt—often tens of thousands of dollars—because the knowledge wasn’t available earlier.
Business finance is different—but related
Managing business finances requires understanding both numbers and emotion. I practiced the Profit First method and loved it in year one. It gave me structure. But when a maternity leave came and revenue dipped, I hadn’t planned for that nuance. Many business owners over-invest after a great month because they assume that month is the new baseline. Then a lean month hits and anxiety skyrockets.
Financial management systems help you avoid emotional reactions like “throw money at the problem.” Instead, you follow data and predictable plans.
Practical financial tools and practices I recommend
Use QuickBooks (or similar): Clean data is non-negotiable. QuickBooks makes bookkeeping easier and gives yourself (or your accountant) numbers they can work with quickly.
Profit First principles: Allocate your revenue into different buckets (profit, owner pay, taxes, operating expenses) so you always know what’s available.
Hire an accountant: One of the best investments I made was an accountant. They help you see blind spots in your revenue and expenses and implement strategies you wouldn’t have known to try.
Track revenue by stream: Know how much each service or product generates and how much time it costs to deliver. If a service costs you time you could bill elsewhere, it’s a candidate for re-pricing or removal.
Have a financial planner for personal finance: If your personal finances are tangled or you need retirement planning, a planner will save you time and money long-term.
Price shop and negotiate: Call insurers, compare mortgage quotes, and don’t accept the first offer. Little savings add up in your personal and business finances.
Debt strategy: If you’re in consumer debt, prioritize it. Consider snowball or avalanche methods to pay it off and be aware of interest rates.
How to implement a financial management system
Set up bookkeeping software and connect your business accounts.
Run baseline reports: Profit & Loss, cash flow, and revenue by service. Do this monthly.
Create simple buckets for income (Profit First or similar). Physically separate accounts if that helps, this was the strategy I used and it was really helpful.
Audit services: For each product or service, list revenue generated, hours required, and net margin. Decide whether to keep, re-price, or remove.
Plan for life events: Build a savings buffer for maternity leave or slow seasons. Aim for 3–6 months of runway if possible.
Get professional help when needed: accountant for business taxes and a financial planner for personal goals.
Financial management systems remove the drama from money. When you know your numbers, decisions become practical and less fearful. And less fear = better business choices.
3. Time management: Realistic strategies that respect life
Time management is presented like an intuitive skill: “You’ll figure it out in university.” Except you don’t, and that’s okay. When I moved from school to work to running a business while parenting, the expectation that I should magically balance everything was unrealistic. But there are practical systems that make a huge difference.
Time management isn’t only about being busy. It’s about intentional choices—deciding which activities will meaningfully move your business forward and which are time traps. It’s a management system that helps you audit, allocate, and protect your most limited resource: attention.
Why traditional Time Management advice fails parents and entrepreneurs
Advice like “time block every hour” assumes a predictable day. If you’re a parent, life is unpredictable by definition. Nap strikes happen. Kids get sick. Meetings run long. Your planning system has to reflect that reality. When I first tried time blocking, I bloackedmy whole week by activty, very aggressively, but, I’d still run out of time because I habitually underestimated how long tasks take. I’m late for everything because I give myself less time than tasks actually need. Sound familiar?
Time management tools & Practises I actually use
Time audit: Spend a week tracking what you do every 15–30 minutes. You’ll learn how long things actually take.
Pomodoro technique: I love 20 minutes on, 5 minutes off cycles, then a 20 min break after the third block. It’s perfect for deep work and helps me feel productive without burning out.
Day or time blocking with buffer: When you block time for tasks, add 20–30% buffer for interruptions. Block “client work” and “creative time” with realistic allowances. I block Monday for needle movers in my business like scheduling blogs and podcast episodes, Tuesdays & Thursdays are for client work, Wednesdays are for meetings and Fridays are flex days to catch up on whatever business or life tasks need to get done.
Eat the frog: Tackle the hardest or most important task first thing in the morning when your willpower is highest.
Small wins: If you’re stuck, do 1–3 small tasks to create momentum—emptied dishwasher, replied to three emails, cleared a chunk of your inbox. This gives you a positive dopamine hit and the motivation to finish bigger tasks after.
Time management as a system
Do a time audit. I cannot stress this enough. You’ll discover hidden drags on your week.
Identify 2–3 high-impact activities that move revenue or progress. Protect time for those weekly.
Use Pomodoro for focused tasks and time blocks for routine work. Don’t schedule client calls in the blocks you’ve reserved for creative work.
Designate at least one day a week for your business—no client meetings. For me, Mondays are my “business work” day where I batch content, record the podcast, and prepare for the week.
Build a flexible schedule for parenting realities. My schedule has regular built-in buffers because children are delightfully unpredictable.
Review weekly. If Instagram content consumes three hours and brings zero clients, re-allocate that time to a more effective channel.
Time management systems let you see the real cost of tasks. If something costs three hours and rarely returns anything meaningful, it’s time to re-evaluate. That clarity lets you stop doing busy work and focus on profit-generating actions.
4. Energy management & cycle awareness: Work with your body
My final management system is one I spend most of my time thinking about: energy. I spend about 90% of my effort managing my energy rather than time. Why? Because my capacity changes day-to-day and even hour-to-hour. When I’m at my peak, tasks that normally take four hours can take one. When I’m depleted, even simple tasks feel impossible.
For women, energy management is tightly linked to hormonal cycles. I learned to run my business according to my cycle (or lunar phases when pregnancy made my cycle disappear). I organize tasks based on the phase I’m in so I work with my energy instead of against it.
What energy management looks like in practice
Energy management is practical: sleep, nutrition, movement, and motivation. It also means scheduling the right kinds of work during the phases of your personal cycle. I loosely refer to my phases as spring, summer, fall, and winter—when I’m in “spring/summer” I’m more social and creative; in “fall” I want to finish and tidy; in “winter” I want to rest, plan, and analyze.
Daily habits to boost energy
Sleep hygiene: I try to turn off screens before bed and get as much sleep as possible, even with kids waking up unpredictably.
Morning routine: Up before the kids for a few quiet minutes. Sometimes I fill it with movement, sometimes journaling, sometimes both.
Nutrition: Meal prep and healthy breakfasts are lifesavers; when I don’t eat, my energy plummets and everything is harder.
Movement & bodywork: Weekday mini-workouts, physiotherapy, and massage keep me physically capable of doing the work.
Scheduled business days: Mondays are my big “growth” day, leaving client-focused days for later in the week when I have more mental bandwidth.
Cycle-aware business planning
Cycle awareness changed how I plan launches, content, and networking. In creative phases I record podcasts, batch social media, and meet new people. In finishing phases I polish, complete, and implement. In rest phases I strategize and analyze. The cycle gives me permission to do less at certain times and more at others without guilt.
Here’s how I align tasks with phases:
Spring/Summer (creative/outward energy): Networking, brainstorming, content creation, recording podcasts, launching.
Fall (finish and implement): Wrap up projects, edit, finalize deliverables, administrative clean-up.
Winter (rest and analyze): Planning, reflection, strategy, lower-content weeks, deeper learning, rest.
Cycle-aware work is not only for people with consistent menstrual cycles. Pregnant seasons, postpartum, menopause, and irregular cycles all require adjustments. I use the lunar cycle sometimes when hormonal cycles are inconsistent (hello, postpartum!). The key is noticing patterns in your energy and scheduling work accordingly.
Putting the four management systems together
These four management systems—emotional, financial, time, and energy—are most powerful when they work in unison. Your emotional system helps you avoid panicked financial or time choices. Your financial system reduces stress so your emotions are easier to regulate. Your time system creates predictable space for the energy you have available. And your energy system tells you when to be ambitious and when to rest.
Here’s a real-world example from my business:
"After a great month of sales, I added new team members and tools. When our revenue dipped the next month, those expenses became a source of anxiety. If we had a better financial buffer and clearer time allocation, we would have controlled expansion in a way that didn't create emotional spirals." — Me
That experience taught me that financial planning and energy awareness reduce the emotional weight of business decisions. I now keep the numbers visible (QuickBooks reports) and I plan work by cycle so I don’t launch a major product in my “winter” phase and resent myself for it later.
Action plan: Build your own management systems in 30 days
If you want to implement these management systems, here’s a 30-day action plan to get started. It’s practical, small-step, and adjustable for parents and business owners.
Week 1: Emotional management
Start a 5-minute morning check-in: label one feeling and one intention for the day.
Learn and practice one breathwork technique (4-in, 6-out) for 2 minutes/day. Teach it to any kids old enough to follow instructions.
Book a therapy or coaching session if you don’t already have one. Even one session can shift perspective.
Create a visible list of grounding techniques (on the fridge or phone widgets).
Week 2: Financial management
Set up (or audit) bookkeeping software—QuickBooks is my pick.
Run a Profit & Loss report for the last 3 months and list all revenue streams.
For each revenue stream, estimate time spent per month and approximate margin. I love using the online tool Toggl to help me track the time on spend on business activities and client work.
Open separate accounts for simple Profit First buckets (profit, taxes, owner pay, operating, etc.).
Week 3: Time management
Conduct a time audit for 3–7 days. Track everything in 30-minute increments.
Identify the highest-impact 2–3 activities for your business. Block times for those weekly.
Experiment with Pomodoro for two deep work blocks daily for three days.
Build a weekly schedule with at least one business-only day (no client meetings).
Week 4: Energy management
Create a realistic sleep and morning routine: aim to turn off screens 30–60 minutes before bed and wake 20–60 minutes before the kids.
Plan two meal-prep sessions on the weekend (or outsource grocery delivery) so healthy meals are easy.
Map your month into phases (create a simple “spring/summer/fall/winter” calendar) and assign types of tasks to each phase.
Schedule regular bodywork or movement (even 10 minutes/day improves resilience).
At the end of 30 days, review what felt sustainable. You don’t need to lock in rigid systems—build flexible frameworks that fit your life.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Over the years I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Here are common traps and how to sidestep them when building your management systems.
Mistake 1: Waiting to “feel ready”
Perfectionism keeps systems in theory. Start small. Do one breath exercise a day. Run one report in QuickBooks. Take one Pomodoro session. Small habits compound.
Mistake 2: Treating systems like rigid rules
Systems should be flexible. If your child’s nap schedule changes, adapt your time blocks. The goal is predictability and calm, not rigidity.
Mistake 3: Confusing activity with impact
Just because you’re doing many tasks doesn’t mean they move your business forward. Use your financial and time audits to identify high-impact work and protect time for it.
Mistake 4: Neglecting your body
Working more hours doesn’t equal more revenue. Manage energy first—sleep, movement, and nutrition will make your work hours exponentially more effective, giving your more time freedom in your life or business.
FAQ: Management systems — your questions answered
Q: What exactly are “management systems”?
A: Management systems are organized sets of practices, tools, and habits you use to run parts of your life predictably. They’re the frameworks you follow for emotional regulation, finances, time, and energy. They help you make consistent choices instead of reacting when things go wrong.
Q: Where should I start if I’m overwhelmed by everything?
A: Start with a single, small win. If you’re chronically tired, start with improving your sleep or a 3-day meal plan focusing on foods that fuel you and give you energy. If you’re anxious about money, run one QuickBooks report or list your monthly subscriptions and cancel two. If emotional triggers are frequent, pick one breath technique and practice it daily. Momentum begins with tiny actions.
Q: How can I make time management work with young kids?
A: Time management with kids requires flexibility. Do a time audit to learn your reality. Block small, high-impact chunks for deep work and accept smaller bursts of productivity. Delegate where possible and build buffer time. If you can, establish one business-only day when you protect the schedule as much as possible.
Q: I don’t have money to hire an accountant—what’s the priority?
A: If paying for help is hard, focus first on clean bookkeeping and simple systems. Use a basic QuickBooks setup, keep receipts and invoices organized, and do a monthly P&L. Many accountants also offer limited-scope engagements (one-off reviews), which are cheaper than full-time help. Prioritize a session to identify blind spots.
Q: How do I align work tasks with my cycle if my phases are inconsistent?
A: Track your energy patterns for a couple of months to identify trends. If cycles are inconsistent (pregnancy, postpartum, menopause), use lunar phases or simple energy labels (high/medium/low) to plan tasks. Be kinder to yourself—shift high-output tasks to days with higher energy and preserve low-energy days for admin or rest.
Q: What if my partner or team doesn’t buy into these systems?
A: Start with small wins they can see. Show how energy management reduced your stress or how a financial snapshot saved money. When people experience benefits, they’re likelier to participate. Invite them to experiment rather than mandate change.
Wrapping up: Start with one system, iterate, and be kind to yourself
Schools taught me many useful things, but these practical management systems—emotional, financial, time, and energy—were missing from my education. Learning them has been transformative personally and professionally. I’m a better mom, a calmer business owner, and a more effective leader because I built systems that support me.
If you want to start somewhere, pick one system and implement the smallest possible action for 7 days. That tiny win will give you momentum. And if you relate to this post—if any of these management systems resonate—send me a message. I love hearing how these ideas land for other people, and sometimes a follow-up episode is born from a single DM.
Remember: success isn’t an all-or-nothing event. It’s a series of small, repeatable choices. Build the management systems that make your life and business work together, not against each other.
Go Get Great Episode 92 References
Ep. 4 Hormone & Health for Personal & Professional Developement
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Hit follow and please leave a review if you enjoyed this episode! The kids and I might even bust out a happy dance! 💗 - Brittany
00:00 Intro
2:00 Emotional regulation skills
6:50 Financial management
12:40 Tips for emotional management
13:15 Tips for financial management
15:30 Time management skill
20:45 Time management tools
22:20 Energy management & hormone cycle in women
32:00 Wrap up
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