Vicky Janowski, Editor of WILMA, Talks Motherhood, Magazines, and Managing it All

There’s a saying that goes, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”

In 2015, Vicky Janowski, Editor of WILMA Magazine and Greater Wilmington Business Journal, was busier than ever, managing the publications and raising her almost 2-year-old daughter. But when an opportunity arose to become involved in a new program at WILMA, centered around female empowerment and helping develop more women leaders in the community, Janowski was intrigued. She soon signed up to head up the initiative (known today as the Women to Watch Leadership Initiative), along with Maggi Apel, Events Director. (Janowski continued her role at the publications as well.)

For three years prior, Janowski had been editing the Business Journal and co-editing WILMA while reading a lot of books on women’s leadership. Janowski was compelled by the mission to connect women to new opportunities and offer ways to help them reach their leadership goals. She was also drawn to the challenge of building something from the ground up.

She and Apel, now co-directors of the innovative program, started with a basic concept of what they wanted to do, and four years after its launch, the Women to Watch Leadership Initiative has created several exciting and successful ongoing programs and demonstrated that “women have the potential to run this town.”

“Creating something from nothing and seeing it grow over the past several years has been fulfilling,” shares Janowski, who is now the sole editor of WILMA Magazine (her former co-editor, Nina, moved to L.A. a few years ago). But Janowski says that her work at the magazine is still a collaborative process and that the content she covers – spotlighting women from all different fields, from the arts to business to education – is continually inspiring.

Every day at the office brings something new, too, due to the nature of news. Her daily responsibilities range from helping to coordinate news coverage, editing reporters’ real estate pieces or economic forecasts, reviewing photos in a style shoot for women, preparing for a new leadership institute class, and so on.

“There are so many different projects, hour to hour can be vastly different,” she says.

With over twenty years of experience working in newspapers and journalism, Janowski is certainly no stranger to multitasking and meeting deadlines. But juggling her career along with family life is an act she’s been practicing for the last five years, ever since her oldest daughter, Josey, was born.

Janowski tells Cape Fear Family Magazine that one of the ways in which she and her husband adapted to getting back to work with a baby was “adding a lot more regiment in the morning routine” and also accepting that the only constant in parenthood is change; so with every new stage in a child’s life comes the need to create new coping strategies.

It helps, she says, that she and her husband are equal partners in parenthood, tag-teaming the everyday tasks of bottle prepping, daycare drop off, cleaning the kitchen, and all “the mundane daily stuff.”

Nine months ago, Janowski and her husband, Jeff, welcomed a second daughter, Parker, into their lives. Janowski remarks on the personality differences between her daughters, but also wonders how much of it has to do with how they’ve been parented, describing her firstborn, Josey, as high-spirited, and her youngest, Parker, as laid-back and content.

“Maybe it’s second-kid syndrome,” she says.

Raising two kids while keeping up with multiple roles at work has the potential to be overwhelming, but Janowski has found that implementing a few simple rituals throughout the day and week can go a long way. For instance, in order to save time and eliminate power struggles over what Josey will wear to school each morning, they now choose all the outfits ahead of time on Sunday and hang them in a shelf organizer, where there’s a space for each day of the week.

“It’s a little thing but, man, does it save some grief around here every day,” says Janowski.

Another little thing that helps a lot is the ten minutes of Cosmic Kids Yoga that they’ve recently added to the morning routine. They use this as an incentive to get Josey up and going for the day but it also doubles as a way for health-conscious Janowski to fit in some exercise where she can.

The most major benefit of being more effective and efficient on the “micro level” though, is the ability it affords parents to be more present, says Janowski.

After the birth of her first daughter, Janowski became interested in reading books about productivity in order to learn how to squeeze as much valuable time out of the day as possible. The better she could manage her time, she figured, the more focused she could be at work, and the more tasks she could accomplish, which then gave her the freedom to enjoy more quality time with her family. She learned to carve out blocks of time where she could be instead of do.

When asked about her idea of work/life balance, Janowski shared a gem of wisdom that she once heard during the leadership institute from Stephanie Lanier, leader of the Lanier Property Group: finding complete balance can be an unattainable ideal, but reframing that idea into a “work/life rhythm” can create more flexibility.

Some days you’ll be more focused on one area than the other, but that’s okay, says Janowski. Giving yourself grace and permission not to be perfect alleviates a lot of stress.

She knows that someday in the not-so-far future she’ll be confronted with yet another learning curve in motherhood, figuring out after-school scheduling and shuffling the kids all around town.

And when the time comes, she’ll approach that challenge like she has the previous ones: by keeping her eye on the big picture and on what’s important. What’s important to Janowski is “being a role model for my daughters,” being a part of the community, passing along her appreciation for the news, and understanding community issues.

While the past year presented plenty of challenges for the Janowski family, with the hurricane hitting just as they were trying to sell their home and move into another, there is much to look forward to in the New Year.

Parker is on the verge of walking. Josey will graduate kindergarten. Janowski will help ambitious women as the Women to Watch Leadership Initiative continues to “grow its footprint.”

On the Greater Wilmington Business Journal side, Janowski is excited to launch quarterly glossy magazines and continue to put important news out to the public.

“Breaking news, getting scoops – that’s one of the fun things,” she says. In fact, it’s a passion that drew her to the journalism field in the first place. “I love working with words and stories,” she says.

True to her curious nature as a journalist, Janowski will keep researching how parents keep their household run more smoothly and find their work/life rhythm. (So if you have any suggestions, she says, please share!)