typically, the way i do it is, fill my tub with water and let it sit over night.. then check the ppm. normally around 160 for me being in the city. then i get my gh nutes which have recommended feeding schedule /desired ppm. for ex i am in earlier veg state of a few weeks so i have bumped my nute ppm to 400(n-p-k). once i add the nutes, i again check the ppm (normally about 550ish because i am only focused on the nute ppm of around 400 for my n-p-k). once that is all taken care of i put in 1 tsp/gallon cal mag (maybe even slightly less), then get my ph stable 5.8-6 and am set to go. i don't check the ppm once i have mixed in the nutes and make sure i have the desired nute range. i do check the ph every 12 hours to keep it as close to 5.8-6.0 as i can w/o messing w/ it too much. maybe i am doing it all wrong, but it is working well so far.
i guess in flowering when the plants start to drink lots of water, it is important to check the ppm due to loss of water. you could be 1000 ppm when you mix nutes and 2 days later once the plants drink some, the ppm could jump to 2000 because plants are drinking more water, less nutes etc. so you need to dump in proper ph water maybe w/o nutes to get the ppm closer to 1000 again.
hope this makes a bit of sense.. checking the ph/ppm can seem intimidating but gets easier as time goes on and you start to get a feel for things
one other note. i normally don't worry about the ppm calmag adds because i like to sit on the lower side of the nute schedule rather than the high/hot side.. to me less has been more so far. it is easier to add a bit of nutes to a slightly deficient plant than burn the crap out of your plants and try to correct that.