Read a book titled 'Out of darkness: A memoir'. Author Zoltan Torey.
Zoltan discusses the benefits of mental imagery in increasing your situational awareness. He goes on to discuss how many of the great mathematicians and scientists are able to use mental imagery to literally see how equations and formulae behave in a 3D environment.
What your possibly alluding to is "Flying the chair". That is flying all sequences prior to Sim in the chair and practicing and refining.
Fundamentally 'Prior planning prevents piss poor performance' and 'Failing to plan is planning to fail', all very cliche'd but very true nonetheless.
Also have a look into situational awareness and OODA Loop, as you do searches more info will flood your way.
Good Luck