Hello,
First time poster here, also doing my PPL (6 hours into it atm...). Can only agree with what others have been saying; I too had that flightsim-induced reflex of peeking at instruments rather than outside to figure out what the plane was doing (well..
), and it was sure fatiguing that way. One really good thing my instructor did was to hold a folded map over the instrument panel every time he noticed me taking a peek inside... That helped quite a bit! I would notice that map coming up when I was not even aware I was peeking; probably used the instruments more than I even realized.
Got cured from that desease in two lessons of the map treatment though!
Best,
- Björn