Your CPD learning plan, built in five minutes

Every November the same thing happens. The CPD year is about to turn over, and somewhere in your inbox is a reminder that you need a learning plan. You open a blank document, type "learning goals", and stare at it.

It isn't that you don't know what you want to learn. It's that the plan has to show why — what you identified, how you identified it, and what you're going to do about it. That's a different job from thinking about your practice.

What the Board actually asks for

The Psychology Board's CPD standard asks for a learning plan that:

• is based on a skills and knowledge self-assessment,

• identifies areas for development or improvement, and

• sets learning objectives that enhance lifelong learning.

The plan sits alongside your activity log and your reflections. It's the document that explains the choices behind the hours — and it's one of the things an auditor can ask to see.

You can update it during the year. A goal that changes isn't a failure; boards expect plans to move.

What the builder does

The free learning plan builder asks a handful of questions about how you work: your setting, the clients you see, how confident you feel across the eight core competencies, and whether anything happened last year that you want to plan around.

From those answers it suggests one to three goals. Each one comes with a plain-language title, the reason it's there, two or three planned activities, and an expected outcome. You can edit any of it, delete what doesn't fit, or add your own.

It suggests few goals on purpose. A plan with three things you'll actually do is more useful than a page of ambitions that quietly expire in March. And it only suggests a goal when your answers support it — if you don't mention ADHD assessments, it won't invent an ADHD goal.

When you're done you can download the plan as a Word document, email it to yourself, or keep it in PracticeReady. No account is needed to build or download it.

What it won't do

The builder doesn't lodge anything with AHPRA, and it doesn't replace your reflection. It produces a working draft: the plan, the activities and the outcomes. What you learn from carrying it out, and how that changes your practice, is yours to write.

It also won't decide what you need. It turns your answers into a usable starting point; the judgement about what matters stays with you.

If you want to keep it

A downloaded plan is a good start. Keeping it in PracticeReady means you can log activity against each goal as the year goes, watch your peer consultation hours accumulate, and regenerate the portfolio whenever a supervisor or the Board asks.

If you sign up from the builder, you start on the founding member offer: a seven-day free trial, then $99 for three years, limited to the first 100 members.

Build your learning plan — it takes about five minutes, and you can change everything afterwards.