A couple of points, I am sure you will have been told these by your instructor, but might be worth reiterating:-
If you start off on the right track and have made the right calculations on the ground then you will NOT be very far from the landmarks you are after - even if you are 10 degrees out you will only be just over 3 miles in error after 20 minutes and you can see that far on most VFR days. On setting heading do a "sensible heading" check - is the coast/railway/main road/runway you took off from etc. in the right place and in the correct orientation.
Do not over navigate, if you have planned correctly you will have landmarks every 6-10 minutes, put your map AWAY and fly the heading, I see a number of people get lost because they are looking at the map so much they do not see what is on the ground and lose heading, as the time approaches for the next landmark then look for it - you should know in advance what you are looking for, once you have seen it you can then pick up the map if you need to to double check it is correct, how close to track you are etc. make any adjustments for time to track and next waypoint, look at what your next checkpoint is and when, then PUT THE MAP DOWN AGAIN!
Last edited by foxmoth; 14th Sep 2015 at 13:27.