How to I get better at Tactics Trainer?

I've been trying to take my chess more seriously recently so I'm watching a lot of the beginner's videos, reading articles, doing the daily puzzles, playing some games and most importantly, trying to do a lot of tactics puzzles. 

I don't feel like I'm getting any better at them. The only piece of advice I've gotten so far about tactics is to keep trying to solve it until I find the solution as opposed to responding to the clock. So I've been trying to slow down and solve before moving... but I don't know... I'm worried I'm brain damaged and not improving. 

How long or how much practice until I start seeing some improvement? 

I've also found progress using TT very slow. I've just started using Chess Mentor and I am finding it very informative. Give it a go and you may find it useful too.

Yeah, I'll second Wbilfc"s suggestion that Chess Mentor courses are extremely useful.  Hit those tactics courses over and over again until you can 100% them.  The TT relies on pattern recognition so the more you are able to burn the basic patterns from CM into your brain, the easier TT becomes.  All of that said, nothing makes the TT really easy; it's a long frustrating road shared by many.

Thanks Guys - I don't mind it being a long road, I just didn't want to be wasting time or reenforcing bad habits or practicing wrong. CM is a good suggestion mixed in, I hadn't looked at that in a while. Thank you!!!

One thing that really helped me figure out how to improve is Dan Heisman's Novice Nook articles.  One thing he says that really helped me is that you should practice a set of problems until you can solve them INSTANTLY.  The goal is to be able to quickly recognize common patterns instead of having to solve them.  One of the articles Dan wrote that was most useful to me is A Counting Primer.  The stuff he covers might be obvious to you, but to me it brought home when trading pieces is fine and when it isn't.  Did a lot to help my understanding.  Good luck!

I dont usually use tactics trainer, I suggest playing blitz to get good at pattern recognition. 

Awesome - thank you VanillaBean - I value these links and appreciate the advice! 

Um you do it alot

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