The Winter Reset, Part 2
By mid-January, the pace hasn’t slowed the way people imagine it does.
While winter feels quieter in some ways, at the Mill we’re still incredibly busy. Online orders are steady — winter is, after all, our season. Comfort matters more when the days are cold, and the work continues right alongside any reflection we’re doing.
What does change is the rhythm.
Our retail store grows quieter, and that allows our retail staff to shift. They step in to help with packaging, finishing, and the behind-the-scenes work that supports everything moving out the door. Inventory has been counted. Systems feel steadier. And the constant urgency of December begins to soften just enough to create something rare: space.
That’s when clearing space starts to mean something different.
This is the moment when ideas finally have room to take shape. Throughout the busy months, we're always thinking — noticing gaps, imagining new products, wondering what if. But thinking and dreaming are different from doing. Mid-January is when we can finally start making prototypes. Touching materials. Testing construction. Seeing if something that lived only in our heads can actually work.
This is the part we all love.
We try things. We adjust. We ask questions. And yes — staff becomes the testing ground. We use the products ourselves. We sleep with them, live with them, talk about what works and what doesn’t. Feedback is honest. Sometimes ideas evolve. Sometimes they get set aside. Sometimes they surprise us.
Innovation here doesn’t look flashy or fast. It looks thoughtful. Hands-on. Rooted in real use and real comfort.
Clearing space in mid-January isn’t about slowing down completely — it’s about making room within the work. Room to experiment. Room to refine. Room to build toward the future without rushing it.
Winter still holds us firmly. Orders still go out. The days are still full. But there’s a quiet excitement underneath it all — the sense that something new is being shaped, one careful step at a time.
This is what making room looks like for us. And in the middle of all this quiet work and experimentation, winter keeps reminding us to rest — a rhythm we’ve learned not to ignore.