I just finished writing the next installment of my blog and I touched on something that feels harsh. If I am really honest with myself, I think the reason that I am having difficulty mastering new techniques is because I have not mastered the most basic one- Counting. It is like I am in a fog when I am trying to learn new stuff- like reading charts (which I have decided is not for me) but there are also things like intarsia that I am afraid to try because I feel like it is a bit too advanced for me. Again, maybe it is just a mental block. I frog a lot and I am not in a great place mentally because of it, but a lot of frogging happens because I can’t count! The blog will be out on Tuesday where I discuss some of these issues. Feel free to stop by! I have left comments on, and I would love any feedback you might have!https://melanie-patterson.blogspot.com/
There is a lot of counting in knitting isn’t there!?
A few years back I spent several days totally stuck, I kept counting to 3 instead of 4 (or vice versa) and was so frustrated with it.
I saw a tutorial on counting, I forget who, a tip there was to count in visual blocks which were 2 and 3, making 5. Our eyes can usually manage to see a set of 2 or a set of 3 without needing to individually count one by one. Alternating 2, 3, 2, 3 means it’s possible to count in sets of 5. The visual is the the 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3 but the words are 5, 10, 15. I thought this was an insightful tip, along with markers (of course).
Personally I find I prefer to count in sets of 2 when I’m just counting a row of stitches but the tip may be a good one for you.
When I do tricky colour work the string of numbers sounds like a telephone number. I count the numbers on my chart and then repeat the numbers as I knit.
With things like intarsia, stranded, charts, I began all of them on a swatch. If you made a piece of say 30 stitches wide and placed markers at 10 and 20 then you could make the centre 10 stitches in a second colour. That’s the type of thing I did. Then a basic fairisle chart on the swatch learning chart and stranded on a small number of stitches.
Having said that, your knitting is always lovely and there are millions of patterns which don’t require intarsia, stranded, charts or whatever, so if you aren’t comfortable with them then there is no need to use them. I almost never knit in the round, and if I do then only a big circumference (body of a sweater), never ever a small circumference. I just can’t do it, it’s not my skill area, I don’t enjoy the battle so I just don’t do it. Luckily for both of us knitting is such a wide and varied process that we can choose the areas we like and enjoy and can leave out the areas which just don’t suit us.
You do need to count when you knit and for lace it’s especially important. I still remember the stitch count (140sts) for the back of a cardigan I made many years ago. I needed to count every row on that honey, no skipping.
Markers or anything that helps make the count easier is all to the good. It takes time but it’s well spent and saves at least some frogging.
Don’t let this get you down. We’re always so critical of our own knitting. You are making progress however slow it may seem. Working new techniques on small projects helps. Dishcloths in lace, intarsia, entrelac or whatever are a great way to go and you’ll have some very fancy dishcloths!
I can’t always count properly even when I’m doing the (non lace) patterns I wrote, for myself! 
Nobody warns you that the hardest thing in knitting or crochet is counting accurately! So depressing to realize I can’t consistently count to 10!
I’m a big fan of counting every row, especially when the designer provides the stitch number at each iteration. I use the counting by 2’s unless I have a large number of stitches and then I place markers every 10 stitches (adjusting for where the increases or decreases may happen)
Oh I feel you on this! One of the things that knitting has taught me is how I can’t count. I have to concentrate really hard because my brain likes to swap 6s for 7s and vice versa. Also, I started counting in blocks of 2 and then I realised that I kept going 2, 4, 6, 10. 
I’m going to try @Creations tip of doing blocks of 2 and 3 and see if I can manage that!