It gets easier with practice, I don't know about where you live but in Portugal to get your license you can only learn manual and you have to do ~~40~~ 32 hours of driving lessons before the exam. By the end of the lessons it becomes second nature. We practiced a lot starting and parking in steep climbs and even rolling starting the car as if the battery was dead. But this was my experience, it changes from school to school.
Since here the majority of cars are still manual, I believe we should learn them because its much easier to move to automatic than the other way around.
Samantha Carter from Stargate SG1