Meet the Minimalist: Jenna Rodrigues
I have been following Jenna for a while, enjoying her financial content under the Allocate Together handle. When she pivoted to sharing about her process of building new habits, I felt like I was constantly responding to her stories; they just resonated with me and felt so spot on. I liked that I saw someone who was making real, incremental change, without judgment, and that it was very intentional.
We connected over how habit formation is so closely tied to the quest for getting organized (you can listen to our conversation about that over here), especially as it relates to the “what happens after three days of doing a thing, then you stop and it feels like it’s all over!”
I wanted to learn more about the move from Allocate Together to documenting the habit-building practices. As we were scheduling our chat, Jenna was also doing some serious downsizing for an out-of-state move so it was great timing to catch up!
___________________________________________________
What prompted you to pivot from financial content to the The Habit Project online?
When quarantine happened, it didn’t feel like the time to take the leap out on my own as an entrepreneur. I needed to keep the day job, moving away from sharing financial content online, and The Habit Project grew out of this.
So much of life feels out of control right now and the one place in my sphere of control are my actions. From setting up my home, feeling comfortable here, to the little daily attitudes and actions that would bring about contentment in this ungrounded, unknown, troublesome time.
Had you thought about documenting habits previously/was this incorporated into your daily routine at all before quarantine?
I think the seed of THP was definitely sown in November 2018. I did the NaNoWriMo project, where you write 50,000 words in 30 days. It was simple but not easy. I would get up at 5:30 AM and word vomit for an hour. At the end of the month, I had a terrible novel that will never see the light of day!
From this writing practice, I realized that mornings were it for me. I didn’t do anything with any regularity for a morning routine before that. NaNoWriMo taught me about developing a practice for a consistent amount of time.
If you can fall in love with the process of doing something over and over again, you can take that in any direction and do whatever you want.
A month into quarantine, THP was starting to gel in my mind as I was taking in personal development content. There is conceivably another year before we figure this pandemic out and if this is the long haul, I need to get out of panic mode, and get into these tiny steps that I’ve taken in the past that I know will help me practice contentment.
Are there any practices or habits that you have developed over time?
“One in, one out” has been a regular practice before THP because I’ve always lived in small spaces and moved quite a bit.
The Clear Habits Journal by Baronfig really changed my life (you can grab a referral link here). I did a no-spend month and this journal was the first thing I bought! I have a couple going; one is all about movement (moving my body in the morning, every single day). In December it was yoga, January was yoga and walks, February was walks, March was walks, then in April I started running one block. I added one block every single day. You can see it evolving over the past nine months now. It’s a cool archive of everything I did for that habit.
You've mentioned living in a small space which doesn't allow for hanging onto too much stuff. Have you always lived in smaller spaces or maintained less than the average person?
I prefer small spaces, for sure. I came at it from a sustainability perspective at first. I worked on a farm for a couple summers where it was pretty minimal and I went initially to understand food and living in communion with the farm.
In college, I lived in a COB house at an environmental campus at my school. It was constructed by students in the 90s, with the intention of “how do we build a place where we can be at peace.” My school had bought a camp that was a couple miles from the campus and you could apply to live there; it was called Pine Lake. We had lots of potlucks, we shared the cost of the CSA, and lived in this tiny house with no cell phone reception. There was just a drawer under the bunk for storage and a little bathroom. There was a LOT of communication with my roommate because it was such a small, shared space.
Do you and your husband ever clash as far as your ideas on living minimally?
As far as meshing our ideas of how to keep a home, we have basically the same idea of when it comes to cleanliness. With design and decor, I was the person who had nothing on her walls. Justin was the person who had maps, old concert things so we had to come to the middle together as a compromise of what we wanted to display.
Photo courtesy of Jenna Rodrigues
How have you adapted to the work-from-home of quarantine life in a smaller space? Any tips to share around the physical clutter of it / mindset?
I worked in an office before quarantine. I am very grateful Justin still went into the bookstore everyday even when they were closed because our space is so small.
I would “commute” to work with one side of my desk for personal stuff and the other side for Zoom. All my work stuff goes away at the end of the day. I was propping my laptop up on a shoe box so it’s at the right height for video calls.
I use timers a lot, especially in the afternoon, when I start losing focus. I make a point to get up out of the chair, away from the computer, and switch the laundry. It’s the most wholesome task! Lunch breaks have been the most important for me to get up and away from my literal box, and go up to the rooftop to eat.
My shutdown ritual starts at 4:45pm when I start going through emails I sent that day, review my drafts, create a To Do list and any scheduling for the next day. The day officially ends when I take my dog XL out for a walk.
You have a major move coming up. Are you downsizing at all?
We always thought we would travel light. The first place we lived with was furnished and our current place (that we are moving out of) was put together with second hand furniture off Craig’s List.
For the move to Boise, we decided we just wanted to downsize and take the Subaru. Our dream is to buy a place at some point so we didn’t invest much in our current apartment. As soon as we found out we were moving, we listed everything to sell and it’s been great!
Furniture is big and bulky so we had to clear that out first. I joined my local Buy Nothing group to get rid of the next level of stuff. I had a spiralizer with great intentions of never eating pasta again - ha! I don’t need office wear again so I got to clear a lot of this out from my wardrobe. I held on to a few things. It was great to be like “no more!” and keep all the things I really love.
After paring down the physical things, the next thing has been digitizing. Justin had always kept physical copies of our tax returns but now, anything tax or business documents, we scan, save to an external hard drive, and back up. We got a scanner a while back and I watched Knock Down the House while digitizing everything.
I typically go into my Google Drive and do some organizing once a quarter. Reviewing photos that aren’t worth keeping, though I do end up throwing a lot of things into archive. Someday when I’m out of free space, I’ll have to deal with it. I keep it chronological to reference it later. On the external hard drive, I do more by category like Tax - 2020, 2019, etc.
A couple years ago, I started practicing the inbox zero - once it’s been processed, it shouldn’t be living in the regular inbox indefinitely. I also use Unroll Me to clear out email clutter.
How has living in smaller spaces and living with less informed the prep for this move?
It’s the first time in our lives where we are getting rid of everything and re-buying things. We are buying some new furniture for this upgrade to a 675 square foot apartment and looking at accent chairs. It will be interesting to see what we choose to do to create this new environment together.
That must feel counterintuitive to be getting rid of things and re-buying for the new place, but it’s more cost-effective to move with less!
I’ve been trying to find the balance around not guilting myself when buying a few nice things for our home. Growing up, I had somewhat of a judgmental view of possessions for a while, along the lines of “you shouldn’t buy new furniture when others don’t have clean water.”
In high school, I heard about this guy who only had 100 things and thought “that’s great, let me get rid of everything” and my dad made fun of me!
Over the years, I have tried to back off a little bit from that extreme perspective.
How has THP played a role in this upcoming move?
This is the biggest transition I’ve been through in three years. When I moved from Maine to Seattle, I didn’t have that grounding practice in place. I know how to self soothe in terms of what I need to be content. It’s all kind of interconnected. I know that no matter what happens, I get up and do my running, my journaling, and I know how to break down hard things into little, actionable steps. I trust myself now and if I fall, I can get back up.
Some people in the personal development space can be pretty militant about their work and development. The whole point of this for me is cultivating contentment and being a little bit closer with growing into who I want to be. Loosening up those fixed ideas about the way we work with ourselves and how we talk to ourselves, being gentler with ourselves.
What else do you want others to know about the habit-building experience?
The habits I’m getting better at are not even the ones I necessarily set out to work on which is kind of cool. It’s all evolving.
I loved talking through how her habit practices are supporting her during these major changes in life from this big move to how she is navigating the pandemic. A little more about Jenna, in her own words:
Jenna Rodrigues is a writer and highly average human interested in habit formation. In May of 2020, she started The Habit Project, a year-long commitment to practicing monotasking, intentional digital consumption, and mindful eating. Follow her journey on Instagram at @tinyhabitsproject or via her weekly newsletter.
She also shared a few of her favorite books below (as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases in the links below):
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
Deep Work by Cal Newport
I really enjoy her newsletter and have found it to be a bright spot in my inbox every Sunday that I look forward to.