I usually start a ten degree or so bank turn with about 4 miles to run onto a 30 degree intercept with the new radial. By the time you have reached intercept the needle is steady and not faffing around all over the shop. Obviously this is for a large change of track from the VOR. If you are more or less going straight on and just using it as a nav point then ignore everything from 4 miles inbound to 4 miles outbound and just fly dead reckoning. Unless you are dodging airspace there's no need to bust a gut flying straight over the top. As someone has said, VOR's tend to be honeypots anyway, best to stay on the outskirts IMO.
There's no need to split hairs doing this stuff, don't over complicate it.