I have another tip and was hoping someone could expand upon it.

"Most" (there are exceptions) regular german verbs can be converted to the past tense by simply adding a (t) after the verb stem (sagen, heissen, hören, hoffen, kaufen etc).

sagen

Ich sage (I say) --> Ich sagte (I said)
Du sagst (you say) --> du sagtest (you said)

arbeiten

Ich arbeite (I work) --> Ich arbeitete (I worked)
Du arbeitest (you work) --> Du arbeitetest (you worked)

Irregular verbs are a bit different.

It seems that most verbs with a stem change of e --> i in present tense have an e --> a change in the past tense(examples: essen, vergessen, sprechen, geben, helfen) then if in the present tense the verb stem ends with an t, you just drop it.

Ich esse (I eat) --> Ich aß (I ate)

du vergisst (you forget) --> du vergaß (You forgot)

except for the Ihr conjugation the t remains

Ihr aßt or Ihr vergasst

Obviously this doesn't work 100% of the time but hopefully it helps a little.

If anybody has any tips for future tense or anything to add for past tense I'd love to hear it.