Leadership Tips and Tricks: “All My Children”

Most Primarys are big, some are even huge, sometimes they make up over half the ward. What ever the amount of primary children you are in charge of  you will need to be able to sort them, at any given moment, by many different filters. After years as a primary secretary, I’ve found that putting all my children in a spreadsheet works best. That way, I can just go to sort them by any of the categories. I will list some of the helpful tips that I learned and then I provide links to spreadsheet files that you can use at home to keep tabs on all your primary children.
1. For sorting purposes including but not limited to Cub Scouts and Achievement days, it is good to add a column for boy or girl.
2. Now this tip is one that took me a while to figure out but instead of just having a “birthday” column make sure you have the birthday separated into month #, Month, Day, and Year. That way you can sort by month for birthdays and by year for classes etc.
3. Separate first and last name because sometimes you will need to sort by families. When you are handing out the primary program CDs, for example.
4. Fill out the first worksheet in Excel, then sort the children as needed and paste into other worksheets for the year. Add in children as new ward members arrive and then update your other worksheets as needed. I put this on CD for the next secretary once I was released.
Here is the Excel File for Excel 97-2003
Here is the Excel File for Excel 2003-
Now, I know what your thinking (My Primary President thought the same thing) Excel isn’t pretty all on it’s own. I get it. Just remember, once you have sorted the information, you can paste it into word, add some pretty clip art in your President’s favorite color and there you have it!