Raiding Method - For Noobs Like Me

Ever since I picked up the game again a few months ago I've struggled to raid simply because my economy idles while I'm laser focused on my 4 scouts (or whatever). All the advice I've managed to glean is basically "git good, scrub". Watching pro players doesn't help, since they just snap around at pro speed. Sure I could burn cycle hotkeys into my muscle memory and snap around like a pro, but that's a lot of work. Enough preamble, on to the method:

Set your TC(s) as a control group. Set your production buildings as a control group. Set your raiding units as a control group. Go raid. Any time that your attention isn't directly needed to control your raiding units, stare at the top left corner.

You can see if your TC is going idle. You can see if your production building(s) is/are going idle. You can remedy these idles without leaving your raid, by hitting the control group and queuing up units. You can see if your eco is balanced. You can see if you're about to be housed.

That way you can plan out what you need to do in your base (e.g. I've got too much wood and not enough food: need to move some lumberjacks to farms). This will let you snap back and take care of your eco like a pro, rather than snapping back and figuring out what to do with your mess of a base that you haven't looked at for 5 minutes while raiding.

Maybe this is too basic or doesn't help you, but it was revolutionary for me. I finally feel like I can do feudal age raids without it being a toss up whether it benefits or hurts me.