Stir well once. I never need to interact more than 4 times / 20 seconds with the pot:

1. Put water in and turn on heat
2. Wait until water boils, then put pasta and salt into water (lower heat now so it doesn't boil over later)
3. Wait 30 seconds, then stir once (i.e. make all the pasta stop touching for a moment)
4. Wait until done, then take pot off and pour out

In addition to that, if you don't have a feeling for how long the pasta needs to boil / how done pasta looks, you need to sample a noodle now and again.