Karol Sojko on the Productivity System That Runs His Day

Karol Sojko doesn't start his workday by opening email. He starts it by walking the dog.

Then he goes to the gym for an hour. Only after that — health locked in, head clear — does he sit down with his to-do list, his calendar and the task of deciding what today is actually going to look like. "I try to make my health a priority before I even touch any email or Slack," he says.

In this story, Sojko, an X-Team developer and Unleasher who spoke at the 4Developers 2017 conference on the topic of Unleashing Your Super-dev-powers, walks through the daily planning ritual that keeps him focused, the workspace and cooking habits that protect that focus and the books and podcasts that shaped his thinking on what productivity actually means.

The Plans-for-Today System

Every morning, Sojko sits down with his to-do list and calendar and builds what he calls a Plans for Today list — a short, concrete declaration of what he intends to accomplish. He shares it on a Slack journal with the core team. "This way, I set clear intentions on what I'm aiming to achieve today," he says.

That list doubles as a commitment device. At the end of the day, he logs any additional thoughts or remarks in Evernote, automated via Zapier so they feed directly into his journal. At the end of each week, he posts a report of everything he completed — a practice he says keeps him motivated to push the bar. He also starts every week by publishing his full to-do list publicly and inviting teammates to add anything they think is missing. Then he zooms out: quarterly goals serve as a filter for everything that lands in his inbox, ensuring new ideas eventually become actionable items rather than noise.

For development work specifically, he uses Pomodoros — timed focus intervals — on tasks that are bigger or require deep concentration. He breaks larger tasks into smaller actionable items and quick wins. When a teammate asked how to know if the day's list is too long, Sojko was direct: you'll calibrate it over time. "After posting that Plans for Today list every day for quite a while, you'll get a hang of how much you can do." And if the list is ambitious? Prioritize, and don't feel bad about carrying things forward.

The deeper point, he says, is what you're measuring. Productivity doesn't mean being busy. "I prefer the interpretation that being productive is more about being at peace with yourself and achieving what you set yourself for," he says. "So, more about quality than quantity. Identifying what I want to do and accomplishing it makes me feel actually productive." For people prone to working 12-hour days chasing the feeling of having done enough, he suggests redirecting: use the Plans for Today list to identify the two or three items that will genuinely deliver that satisfaction factor — and focus there.

Wednesday Is Sacred, Headphones Are Non-Negotiable

Sojko doesn't treat every day the same.

Wednesdays are no-meetings days. No calls, no weekly status updates, no administrative back-and-forth. He reserves them entirely for software development — and rewards himself with good coffee at a café. The routine came from reading a blog post by Ignacio Segura on working outside the home one day a week, and it stuck. Working in cafés with the right gear, he argues, is entirely viable. "I think you can't stress more on buying good headphones with active noise cancellation," he says. He settled on the Sony MDR-ZX770BN — about half the price of the Bose options that were popular at the time, and, in his assessment, plenty sweet for café work.

Food follows a similar logic of simplicity serving focus. Sojko cooks most of his own meals — not because he has extra time, but because cooking doesn't have to be time-consuming if you don't attempt grandiose dishes. His approach: one-pot dishes, stews, things that can simmer for two hours while he gets back to work. Melt some butter and garlic, add spinach, put a salmon on top. Done. When he has more time in an evening, he makes a larger batch of something complex and freezes portions for the days when there's no time to cook. The goal is to remove daily decision-making around meals from the friction budget entirely.

The Reading List Behind the System

None of these habits appeared from nowhere. Sojko is a dedicated reader and listener, and he's willing to share the sources that shaped his thinking.

His go-to classics for productivity and remote work:

• The 4-Hour Workweek — "the book that made me want to work remotely"
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business — one of the best books he's read on developing routines
• Rework (and its companion Remote) from 37signals — a tight encapsulation of productivity, remote work and running a business
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad — less about productivity directly, more about life strategy and finances

On a lighter note, he recommends You Are Not So Smart for understanding why we behave the way we do, The Nerdist Way for productivity hacks delivered in a stand-up comedy voice and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F$ck for getting perspective and learning to prioritize. For anyone short on reading time, he suggests an Audible subscription for listening to books.

His podcast rotation at the time included This Is Your Life with Michael Hyatt, which he credits with several productivity tips he later adapted into his own system; Freakonomics Radio for a regular dose of substantive knowledge; Smart Passive Income Podcast for business and interview insights; and Productivityist for interviews about people's personal approaches to getting things done.

Sojko also published his own contribution to the field: To-Do: Team!, a book of productivity techniques for improving software teams, available on Amazon.

The throughline in everything he recommends is the same idea that runs his daily planning: figure out what matters, build habits around it and measure yourself against what you actually set out to do — not against some abstract notion of maximum output.

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