My mom swears by this technique too but it doesn't work for me.  I am always 100% aware of all the money I have in any account and all the bills I owe.  Luckily I'm also pretty frugal so I don't spend until I am broke like some people do. 

It's a great tip though and it works for my mom.  She says for her it's emergency money in case she ever accidently writes too many checks one day or something like that, this way she won't have to worry about overdraft fees. 

A CD is also an awesome idea.  I got one for 18 months and then every 18 months I roll it over for another 18.  The only reason I don't set it for longer is just in case I really need it since we are still building up our savings. I'm not ready to commit to a CD longer than 18 months.

Anyway, back to the tricking yourself thing.  The reason it doesn't work for me is bc I cannot trick myself.  For example, I tried the trick before to set your clock ahead so I would always be a few minutes ahead of schedule.... however every morning I did the math and knew how much time I really had.  It didn't work at all, so after a few months of that I had to set it to the right time because all I was doing was wasting time doing math each morning :)