On Monday we discussed recognising checkmate patterns, using the (500 year old!) Damiano mate as an illustration. Becoming familiar with checkmate patterns helps you to spot winning opportunities and, if not an immediate win, to visualise the final position that you're aiming to reach. You can then work out how to clear a path for your checkmating piece, or whether you need to dislodge a defending piece first. This is really not about calculating lots of moves in advance - just one or two.
Online endgame puzzles can help you to practise this, particularly with common checkmates such as the back-rank mate.
