Practicing
If you go into a casino and get totally lost after the first five cards are dealt don't get discouraged. That happened to me the first time I went counting.
Counting at home and counting in a casino are two very different things. No matter what you do you just can't duplicate the actual casino environment, i.e. noise, annoying players, waitresses, speed of dealer.
Absolutely, positively, under any circumstances whatsoever do you need to do the ol' "if I would of stood instead of hitting then I wouldn't of busted and then the dealer would of gotten that ten to go with his 14 and busted instead of me" type of second-guessing. Never do the ol' "if-I-would-of-done-this-instead-of-that-then-I would-of-won". Accept the results then move on to the next hand. It's useless and a waste of valuable time you could spend figuring out the # of decks left and converting to TC, etc..
Some places, if a player busts, pick up the cards immediately so be sure to watch and see if they do this.
If you can go to a casino and stand behind the players and practice counting then I highly encourage you to do so. And don't mouth the numbers to yourself!!!!
Those are some of the things I have learned so far that might help you.