For the Church Musician: A Planning Worksheet

As a church musician, you know that once the church year starts, there seem to be fewer and fewer days between Sundays. 

It can be challenging to get ahead and stay ahead in your planning and keep everyone (staff members, choir, etc.) on the same page week-to-week. I always found summer to be the best time to find new anthems, order music, and sketch out ideas for the fall/Christmas. Also, using a spreadsheet like this one helped me easily keep track of month-to-month planning and made it easier for our administrative assistant to prepare the bulletin each week. 

So, I designed a simple downloadable worksheet to help you plan for the year.

Download the 2013-2014 [download id="3" format="6"].  Open it in Excel and save it to your computer.

The columns are customizable so you can fill in the specific components of the service that you need to plan - I added a few place holders that I've used in the past to help get you started. The 2013-2014 dates (September-June) are filled in for you, including the most common non-Sunday services like Christmas Eve and Good Friday. There's also a pre-filled column for seasons of the church year (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, etc.).

Once you've done a little planning, you can print a hard copy to keep on file or send electronic copies to others on staff. Hope this is helpful to you as you prepare for the coming year.

Happy summer and happy planning!

Follow along with my creative work and daily adventures: @ashleydanyew

Crunchy leaves, warm mugs of coffee, blue sky, Apple Harvest Cake, homemade corn chowder, and chunky-knit sweaters. #thegoodlist
“When you only focus on the life you project to the world, you start living halfheartedly. It becomes nearly impossible to be content with the life you have.” 💛 - @hannahbrencher, Come Matter Here #ashleydanyewreads
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Embracing this truth today. 💛 #morganharpernichols
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It’s an age-old paradox: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ How to get more done in less time. 🕔 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We buy new planners. We sign up for new digital task organizers. We keep a notepad handy at all times and have a running to-do list on our phones, in our inboxes, and in our heads pretty much all the time. 🤯 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And yet, we’re still trying to find ways to be more productive. To stay on top of everything and keep all the plates spinning. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Something that might help: Batching. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ On the blog today, I'm sharing how I use batching to save time every week and how you can, too! (Link in profile.)