I hear this a lot from people without any experience with manuals. The thing is, your subconscious takes over and you don't always think of gear changes. Just like turn signals. For those of us that use them (!) it doesn't take thought, it just happens. Manual transmissions are much the same. Just hang back a little so you're not shifting so much. I've owned far more manuals than autos and vastly prefer them to an auto-magic box that tries to think for me.