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Cal Newport will believe you're doing things the "right" way. "The" most effective way.
2) You will become much more realistic about how long it takes to do something.
3) You will be forced to face up to the fact that you can't possibly get everything done which you have committed to.
The timetable looks like this:
0900-0940 Work Period 1
0950-1030 Work Period 2
1100-1140 Work Period 3
1150-1230 Work Period 4
1400-1440 Work Period 5
1450-1530 Work Period 6
1600-1640 Work Period 7
1650-1730 Work Period 8
You decide fill in the subject for each period beforehand, and stick to it. You finish each period on time regardless of whether you've finished or not. As at school, you can schedule double periods ("double Chemistry"), entire mornings or afternoons ("Sports afternoon"), or whole days for specific activities ("school trip").
If you're a real glutton for punishment you can add a couple of evening periods as well.
The exact timings of the blocks of work produce a very concentrated effect on the work. You also get plenty of rest periods so you are at high productivity.
[Squarespace has added the Skype link automatically - and I've no idea how to get rid of it!]
>>In this you are scheduling blocks of time for specific subjects, like "French" or "Physics", rather than tasks like "Vocabulary Test" or "Revise Properties of Electromagnets".<<
Oh! Thank you for making this distinction.
I'll give the "classroom periods" another try... I ought to have more success with it if I do it correctly! Scheduling non-time-sensitive (time-insensitive? evergreen?) tasks has seldom worked well for me, but I would still like to impose some structure on my discretionary time. Scheduling by subject/category would let me keep some flexibility without losing focus and being overwhelmed (or distracted) by choices.
To answer the original question: while I'm obviously not a full-time "schedule everything" person, I've certainly had to work that way for limited periods. When I have more time-sensitive tasks on the horizon than I can easily juggle in short-term memory, I begin to feel stress. To resolve the stress, I map it all out on a schedule just to be sure there's time for everything. (My threshold for this kind of stress is fairly low, so I usually start scheduling long before there's a serious problem.)
Odds are that I won't stick to the original schedule exactly as planned - but I'll be able to see whether or not I can afford to stray from it.