I remember when I was learning matrix calculus and realized at some point that it was much simpler to convert everything to index notation, perform all operations, then convert everything back to standard notation at the end. It became almost comically simple, because you're "just" working with labeled scalars at that point. To be fair, it's convenient to memorize some of the more commonly used expressions (like ∂tr(AB)/∂B) rather than rederive them from scratch.