My problem was I was thinking of trimming as an extra thing I had to do - really, it means you have less to do.
The best advice I have ever been given in flying is this: Unload yourself.
What does this mean? Ok, power on, take off roll, reach takeoff safety speed (usually 1.5x stall), rotate, airborne, set your climb attitude. Next thing, trim. With a bit of practice, about 20 seconds after liftoff, you will be trimmed for the climb - this means you can take your hands off the controls and you'll continue to climb at your (usually) 500ft/min. Your speed will be stable, your climb rate will be stable, and you'll keep climbing until you either get disturbed by a gust of wind etc or you change the controls.
Take this time now that you can fly with hands off to glance at your engine instruments - that the RPM is what you expect it to be, oil temps and pressure is ok, airspeed is what you expect, then check your performance again (attitude, power etc). This can all be done within 45 seconds after liftoff. Now you do what any VFR pilot does best - look outside. As you're not struggling to keep the aircraft under control, you can observe what is going on outside. Looking for traffic, obstacles, making sure what you see outside matches the instruments (ie you're climbing, going fast enough etc).
Coming up to your assigned / desired altitude, use the yolk to bring the nose down, power to cruise, trim, trim, trim. Usually up to about 1/2 - 3/4 of a turn on the trim wheel and you're almost able to fly hands off again in seconds.
A good exercise here - trim for the climb, then don't touch the yolk again until you're on final to land. Use the trim for your attitude and rudder for turning. Do the entire circuit using only trim, rudder and throttle. As you would have been taught, the secondary action of yaw is roll - so you'll find you actually start to bank while only using the rudder. It gets tricky - and you'll be all over the place while first trying this - but it is great for learning the relationship as to what you're doing affecting the aircraft.
Anyhow - this isn't flight training 101 on slashdot, but learning to fly has been a highlight of my life - and I'm always happy to share things with people. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss more random things ;)