Rainboe: I completely agree!
Whilst flying any NDB based procedure, the first round is just a check. Calculating corrections on less then 5 degrees is of no use to anyone with a normal directional gyro.
I did it like this and I passed my skilltest...
Coming into the hold, you want to be tracking and not homing in to the beacon. This will give you a good guidance as to where the wind is coming from. Then fly the first orbit with minor corrections to what you believe is correct. You want to be making rate on turns in all heading changes and this might force you to deflect not just your heading going outbound, but also the track made good (the protected area should cover this). The aim is to then make a rate one turn and end up on a perfecktly spaced inbound track. The inbound track should be on track and on time. If after the first outbound track, you produce a 50 second inbound track before passing the beacon, you know you have a tailwind coming in and a headwind going out. Add at least 10 seconds to the next outbound and this will give you a good correction. If you overshot the inbound course during the turn, turn the outbound track into the wind a little and this will correct for drift during the inbound turn.
Having said this, it can be very useful to draw up a couple of holds with different winds and do the exact math in the comfort of your own home. Do a couple of examples and then you'll get a feel for how to correct for different winds. But doing this in the plane is utter nonsense. I had a teacher that tried to force us to manouver the plane simply by calculating our way around the procedures. Needless to say, it never worked. Fly the plane instead and see what happens. If you know the mechanics behind drift and windcorrections, you'll be able to pick up on any changes you have to do and from these, get a picture of what you need to do.
Last tip is to try it on MS Flight Sim or similar. It really helps.
/LnS