I've only ever adjusted this on vintage watches but, as far as they are concerned, the date change will always happen when the hour and minute wheels (and the rest of the gear train) are in one particular place. In other words, I have always set the position of the hands to match the date change, rather than the other way round. With the hands removed, I wind the watch until the date just starts to move and then re-fit the hands, setting them to exactly midnight. This is entirely self-taught so may not be the "text book" way to do things but it has worked well for me so far. I imagine even newer mechanical movements could be set in the same way but I would be interested to hear how others do it?