Planning and organisation skills focus on how you identify tasks, manage resources, and coordinate activities to successfully achieve your goals within deadlines.
Planning skills involve setting clear objectives, breaking down complex tasks into manageable steps, and creating realistic timelines. Organisation skills encompass managing resources, coordinating different elements of a project, and maintaining systems that keep everything running smoothly.
You can see a full list of the skills included in this category at the bottom of this page.
These skills help you stay on track in all areas of life, from organising your day or revision schedules to managing long-term, high-budget projects in a professional job. They enhance your ability to manage competing priorities, work efficiently under pressure, and deliver quality results consistently. Strong planning and organisation skills reduce stress, improve productivity, and enable you to take on more complex challenges with confidence.
Think about which of these skills you utilise using the list at the bottom of the page, and use the Skills Discovery Tool to evaluate your skills.
Easy ways to get started
You can start developing these skills through simple changes to your daily routine. You could try:
- Practicing backwards planning. Start with an upcoming deadline and work backwards to identify all the steps needed so you can allocate enough time to each one.
- Time-blocking in your calendar by assigning specific time slots to different activities, including study time, meals, and social activities. This can develop better time management habits while supporting you to have a balance between study and everything else!
- Using the "two-minute rule" - if something takes less than two minutes, do it immediately rather than adding it to your to-do list, improving your efficiency.
If planning and organisation is something you find difficult, particularly if you have disability or neurodivergence, remember that these are skills that can be practiced rather than inherent qualities. Find methods that work for you and the way you think (which may be different to the standard 'use a planner' advice) and implement them into your everyday life to form habits. Chat to friends to see how they stay on track, or speak to your ADRC mentor about trying new strategies. Try out these resources and digital tools and look at the CamGuide for time management.
Skills development opportunities
As you build confidence with everyday planning and organisation, you might want to put these into practice to evidence your skills. Balancing any extra-curricular role or responsibility alongside your studies will do this, but here are some specific suggestions:
- Take on event management roles such Events Officer for a society or JCR/MCR committee or running charity fundraisers like the CU Charity Fashion Show or Cambridge RAG. This is a great way to develop large-scale planning and collaboration skills.
- Join your College's May Ball Committee to gain experience in complex project management, working with budgets, coordinating vendors, and managing timelines for major events.
- Get involved in theatre productions by taking on roles such as stage manager, producer, or technical director, which require detailed planning and adaptable problem-solving skills. Find out more on the Theatre, Film & Arts page.
- Access UIS training courses on using Office 365 effectively - learning how to make the most of your calendar, filter your emails and organise your files will save you time (and frustration!)
- If you're a PhD student, you could become a postgraduate workshop convenor, arranging events for postgrads to present their research, test out new ideas and receive informal feedback. Managing the programme logistics will develop your project management and leadership skills.
- Take on a leadership role for a recreational sports team, arranging training sessions and matches. This could be for a sport you're already involved with, or you could start up a new team in your College. Find out more on the Physical Activity & Sport page.
Check out the activities pages for more ideas on how to get involved and develop your skills in this area.
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Skill |
Definition |
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Ability to reflect |
The ability to engage in introspection, evaluate personal strengths and weaknesses, and seek feedback from others. |
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Ability to work remotely |
The ability to navigate hybrid or fully remote work setups (e.g., the use of email and virtual meetings and work without in-person guidance). |
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Adaptability |
The ability to change one's attitudes or behaviours to accommodate new changes (e.g., new technologies, work patterns, new skills). |
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Agile thinking |
The ability to understand, react and adapt quickly and effectively to changing circumstances. |
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Applying appropriate learning strategies |
The ability to identify the most efficient learning strategy (e.g., visual, multisensory, collaborative learning, etc.) to acquire and retain new skills or knowledge. |
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Asking the right questions |
The ability to ask insightful, relevant, and purposeful questions to obtain information, clarify a point, or explore difficulties other people may have. |
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Collaboration |
The ability to work together with others and coordinate individuals' different skills to achieve a shared goal. |
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Commercial awareness |
The ability to understand the market, the business environment, and the factors that influence the success of an organisation (e.g., customers, opportunities, or competitors). |
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Communication |
The ability to effectively share information, ideas, and emotions with others through written, verbal, and non-verbal mediums. |
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Coping with uncertainty |
The ability to navigate and perform adeptly in situations with significant levels of unpredictability or potentially unexpected changes. |
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Creativity and imagination |
The ability to generate ideas, products, or ways of working that are original, new, and valuable. |
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Dealing with conflict |
The ability to recognise issues early, manage your emotions, empathise and listen in situations of conflict. |
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Decisiveness |
The ability to make decisions confidently, resolutely, and quickly. |
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Event management |
The ability to organise and host events for social or business purposes. |
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Fluency of ideas |
The ability to brainstorm or quickly generate a large number of ideas, concepts, or possibilities within a topic or a context. |
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Goal monitoring, adjusting and evaluating |
The ability to regularly track progress towards a goal, evaluate the effectiveness of activities, and adjust future steps and strategies to ensure alignment with desired objectives. |
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Initiative |
The ability to take a lead in a project or offer a fresh approach to something. |
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Learning to learn |
The capacity to take personal responsibility for one's own learning; the ability to pursue and persist in learning, to organise one's own learning |
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Monitoring & Evaluation |
The ability to assess the performance of oneself, others, or a project to suggest improvements or corrective action in order to achieve something. |
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Optimism |
The ability to perceive situations with hope and stay confident about successful outcomes even in challenging situations. |
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Organisational Awareness |
The ability to understand different elements of organisations (e.g., their structure, culture, values, roles, and dynamics) to help navigate relationships within them and successfully meet their goals. |
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Project management |
The ability to lead a team, plan and organise tasks, and implement changes, tools, or improvements to achieve successful delivery of a project. |
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Research |
The ability to conduct a systematic and detailed study to discover (new) information or (new) understanding of a subject. |
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Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility |
The ability to quickly recover from setbacks or challenging situations and easily adjust to changing circumstances or requirements. |
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Strategic planning |
The ability to define a coherent vision or strategy and decide on the allocation of tasks and resources to attain goals. |
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Structured problem solving |
The ability to solve complex problems by breaking them into parts, identifying the root causes of each issue, and applying analytical techniques to find solutions. |
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Systems analysis |
The ability to examine and understand how systems work, what are its bigger and smaller parts, and find ways of improving those outcomes. |
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Teamwork |
The ability to work together with others or in a group to collaboratively achieve a common goal. |
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Time management and prioritization |
The ability to manage one's time, organise tasks according to their urgency, and choose the most efficient method of executing them. |
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Work-plan development |
The ability to identify a goal, set strategies and resources, assign responsibilities, and a realistic deadline for completing the goal. |