# opposite of procrastination



## ArthurC

Hello everyone. Thanks for reading my first post on this forum.
I'm looking for a word to describe an extremely active and productive person who does everything right away despite being overtaxing... kinda like the opposite of procrastinating?
Thanks in advance.


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## boozer

Hard to say like that. In such cases we usually ask the OP to give a sentence where he/she wants the word used, leaving a blank for it.

Otherwise, in theory, I might call such a person simply 'efficient'


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## Keith Bradford

*Pro-active *is another possibility.  And when concentrating on doing things in time, there's *punctual*.


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## velisarius

How about "eager"? But boozer is right, we need a sentence.


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## djmc

Procrastination is normally thought of as being negative or blameworthy, whereas to be proactive or punctual is laudable. However not all procrastination is to be avoided. Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator (delayer) is a good example of excellent strategy in avoiding pitched battle with Hannibal. In the same way rushing into things may be culpable. Overeagerness or rashness may be the words wanted. As the saying goes "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".


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## ArthurC

I wanted to say "workaholic" in a positive way, to describe a person that's motivated, determined and convicted.

She ventured into the Far East in pursue of her dream. Despite having distant relatives in China she had never been there herself. With the blessing and instruction from her mentor, she bought a ticket to Shanghai after being offered a teaching position in a dancing school. It was her _______ spirit that inspired me.


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## Parla

From your first post, I'd say that such a person is_ industrious, hard-working, productive._ But in your little story, the word that come to my mind for the blank is _adventurous_.


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## morior_invictus

"*proactivity*" (_adj._* proactive*),  as Keith suggested above, is almost perfect. "*alacrity*" (_adj. _*alacritous*) may also work.


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## ArthurC

Thanks everyone. 
I think alacrity may be the word I've been looking for. 
I checked the word proactive on MW. It says visionary, farseeing are synonyms and insightful is a related word. But when I looked at the sentences:


A survey was given out to customers so that the company could take _proactive_ steps to improve their service.
The city is taking a _proactive_ approach to fighting crime by hiring more police officers.
I am curious how to use this word to describe a person?
I can probably say:
He is taking proactive steps to manage the kingdom.
He is a proactive king.


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## Keith Bradford

ArthurC said:


> ...I can probably say:
> He is taking proactive steps to manage the kingdom.
> but can I say
> He is a proactive king.



Yes.


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## Packard

djmc said:


> Procrastination is normally thought of as being negative or blameworthy, whereas to be proactive or punctual is laudable. However not all procrastination is to be avoided. Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator (delayer) is a good example of excellent strategy in avoiding pitched battle with Hannibal. In the same way rushing into things may be culpable. Overeagerness or rashness may be the words wanted. As the saying goes "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".



I agree.  And "rash" would be a negative or blameworthy version of "prompt".


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## Packard

Keith Bradford said:


> Yes.



In the USA it would sound like he was using acne medications.

See: http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/blogs...kincare-arrived-uk-worth-money-125054667.html

It's arrived. The skincare brand hailed as a miracle cure for problem skin has finally landed on our shores, 17 years after Dr. Katie Rodan and Dr. Kathy Fields unveiled what became one of the best selling skincare brands of all time.  But with a price tag of £39.99, will it prove as popular as it is in the US?


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## ArthurC

Packard said:


> In the USA it would sound like he was using acne medications.
> 
> See: http://www.proactiv.com/?uci=ous111&s_kwcid=TC|1026596|proactive||S|e|14199136698&cid=cov183p260316
> 
> About Proactiv
> How to Use
> Care & Benefits
> About Acne
> Success Stories



lol yeah! I learned that word from the TV commercial of proactiv when I was in high school in Arizona. Never bothered to learn the real meaning of this word until now.


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## gramman

Looking back at the paragraph about the lady travelling to China, I like Parla's _adventurous_ and would offer another suggestion: _enterprising_


> marked by imagination, initiative, and readiness to undertake new projects  (_"An enterprising foreign policy"_) — from the WordNet list generated by a OneLook Dictionary search


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## ArthurC

gramman said:


> Looking back at the paragraph about the lady travelling to China, I like Parla's _adventurous_ and would offer another suggestion: _enterprising_ (marked by aggressive ambition and energy and initiative)



Enterprising sounds like a good word to describe a person seeking to start his business or to attain fame and fortune. But what about an artist pursuing his dream? Or a Christian missionary? 

I am not sure. Enterprising sounds... materialistic. It seems fit by its definition but I can't help to feel it is inappropriate.


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## djmc

Proactive always sounds like marketing/managerial speak. Workers must be proactive. Software engineers must be proactive. In practice this means that not only do they fix bugs, they must create new ones. How about enthusiastic. In the 18th Century this had a negative connotation to describe fanatical evangelicals but now is almost everywhere positive.


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## JulianStuart

The Urban Dictionary has an entry for, guess what: anticrastination
Equally valid, from an etymology perspective, and anyone who knew the word pro- would understand the anti- version


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## gramman

Human behaviour (personal and social) is very complex. I'd say your exploration of the language here is a fairly sophisticated analysis.

Your original description was


extremely active and productive person 
does everything right away despite being overtaxing 
kinda like the opposite of procrastinating 
 _Efficient_ would seem to fit in there pretty well. _Pro-active _sounds more focused to me. And, as noted, a focus on timeliness suggests _punctual_. (Keith meant to say _on_ time.) _Eager_, again, would be part of this. djmc noted that judgement and balance are important elements of these qualities, this attitude/approach. 

_industrious_,_ hard-working_,_ productive_ go well with both original post and

"workaholic" in a positive way 
motivated, determined and convicted (I think you mean _having conviction_ [great confidence in your beliefs or opinions[COLOR=#0]][/COLOR].) 
 Then  you (finally  ) gave us more context (the lady travelling to China.)

_Adventurous_ works well there, in part I suppose, because you open with "She ventured." And "an adventurous spirit" sounds right with "had never been there" and "inspired." Travelling to live in China would certainly be an adventure for me! I might well inspire others by taking on such a challenge.

_Alacrity_ may connote a sort of brisk, cheerful, lively, enthusiastic eagerness/willingness. You accept things with alacrity, responding promptly from a state of readiness. I grew up loving the chess game of defensive secondary play in American football. I want my free safety to have great alacrity. You seize opportunities and perhaps respond to some invitations with alacrity. US Marines in combat have alacrity. You can sail with it, you want emergency room surgeons to move with it.

_visionary_,_ farseeing_,_ insightful_ are certainly related, but may represent a different focus. I'd think about this some more, but I have too much time to anticrastinate and I certainly afford to. I'm not much more than a bit of an anticrastinator anyway. 

The negative connotation associated with _enterprising _seems to have faded:





> Until mid-19c. (at least in Britain) mostly in a bad sense: "scheming, ambitious, foolhardy." — Online Etymology Dictionary


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## Keith Bradford

gramman said:


> ...Keith meant to say _on_ time...



No I didn't, I meant in time rather than in space.


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## gramman

>>I meant in time rather than in space

I was afraid of that.  Embarrassingly, I didn't even throw in an "I think." I guess I decided it was more likely a typo than a dimensionally oriented statement.  And I can see the point of this distinction when I look back to my discourse about alacrity: a good free safety will indeed move both spatially and temporally in ways that are "extremely active and productive," "do[ing] everything right away," while at the same time not _biting too early_ (being deceived by an offensive player) and getting caught out of position.


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## wandle

JulianStuart said:


> The Urban Dictionary has an entry for, guess what: anticrastination
> Equally valid, from an etymology perspective, and anyone who knew the word pro- would understand the anti- version


Sorry, but it is not valid etymologically and does not make good sense.
The 'pro' in 'procrastination' means 'forward' or 'onward'. 
It is not the 'pro' which means 'on behalf of' or 'in favour of' and which is the opposite of 'anti' (against).

There is in fact a noun which is a good antonym to the noun 'procrastination': namely 'dispatch', which means 'rapid performance' (Chambers) or 'prompt action' (Collins: _noun_ 2 in WordRef).

_'He showed great dispatch in his handling of the matter'._


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## JulianStuart

Awwww, I'm always in favour of tomorrow.  So how about "retrocrastination" or "proherination"?  Meaning, respectively, getting it done before tomorrow and "I did it yesterday already!" !


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## gramman

See the list at the end of An interactive editorial on procrastination. And do it _now!_


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## wandle

JulianStuart said:


> Awwww, I'm always in favour of tomorrow.  So how about "retrocrastination" or "proherination"?  Meaning, respectively, getting it done before tomorrow and "I did it yesterday already!" !


I would say they mean respectively 'putting things back to tomorow' and 'putting things forward to yesterday'.


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## JulianStuart

wandle said:


> I would say they mean respectively 'putting things back to tomorrow' and 'putting things forward to yesterday'.



Both suitable, technically, as antonyms of putting things forward to tomorrow, even if neither makes sense   But then, as my final offer: antecrastination?


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## wandle

The notional root adjective here is 'crastine', formed by analogy with 'pristine'. Just as 'pristine' means 'pertaining to the initial state', so 'crastine' means 'pertaining to, or belonging to, tomorrow'. Thus the root '-crastination' means 'making it belong to tomorrow', 'assigning it to tomorrow'. 
The prefix 'pro' strengthens that sense by adding the idea of 'forward to tomorrow'.
The prefix 'ante-', on the other hand, means 'before'. Therefore it contradicts the rest of the word. 

The word for 'belonging to today' is 'hodiernal'. Thus the word for 'making it belong to today', or 'assigning it to today's business', would be 'hodiernation'.


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## helmandriver

Brian Tracy has a book titled "Just Shut Up and Do It". The main message of the book is to teach how to overcome procrastination. He has expressed this message clearly in the title of the book "Just Shut Up and Do It". According to this title, I think the opposite of "procrastination" must be the word "doing". If one procrastinates he or she doesn't do what they have to do, but if they do it, they don't procrastinate. It is better, thus, to say that the opposite of procrastination is doing.


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## wandle

helmandriver said:


> It is better, thus, to say that the opposite of procrastination is doing.


Your post shows that those ideas are inconsistent, or incompatible: not that they are opposites. 
To be opposites, they need to correspond exactly in a negative sense.


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## Myridon

helmandriver said:


> Brian Tracy has a book titled "Just Shut Up and Do It". The main message of the book is to teach how to overcome procrastination. He has expressed this message clearly in the title of the book "Just Shut Up and Do It". According to this title, I think the opposite of "procrastination" must be the word "doing". If one procrastinates he or she doesn't do what they have to do, but if they do it, they don't procrastinate. It is better, thus, to say that the opposite of procrastination is doing.


The procrastinator does something tomorrow that should have been done today. The procrastinator eventually does the "doing".


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## JulianStuart

Myridon said:


> The procrastinator eventually does the "doing".


Let me get back to you on that  A good procrastinator never does anything - it's the lesser ones that do things!


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## Packard

A "go-getter" I imagine, was originally the opposite of  a procrastinator, but it has gained a meaning of an aggressive "tiger", which might be the opposite of Julian's procrastinator.


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## emanko

Hello

I've read the thread, but I still can't see a clear-cut answer. What do you call a person who always finishes their tasks once they receive them? In my language we say "He finishes his tasks first by first." I'm sure there's some expression that conveys the same idea in English.

Thank you


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## Packard

ArthurC said:


> Thanks everyone.
> I think alacrity may be the word I've been looking for.
> I checked the word proactive on MW. It says visionary, farseeing are synonyms and insightful is a related word. But when I looked at the sentences:
> 
> 
> A survey was given out to customers so that the company could take _proactive_ steps to improve their service.
> The city is taking a _proactive_ approach to fighting crime by hiring more police officers.
> I am curious how to use this word to describe a person?
> I can probably say:
> He is taking proactive steps to manage the kingdom.
> He is a proactive king.


A simple “good king” would work.
Good King Wenceslas - Wikipedia

_*Good King Wenceslas*" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king going on a journey and braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia or Svatý Václavin Czech (907–935). The name Wenceslas is a Latinised version of the old Czech language "Venceslav_".


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## Loob

emanko said:


> I've read the thread, but I still can't see a clear-cut answer. What do you call a person who always finishes their tasks once they receive them? In my language we say "He finishes his tasks first by first." I'm sure there's some expression that conveys the same idea in English.


Hello emanko
Can I check what you're looking for?  Is it someone who always finishes tasks as soon as he receives them - someone who's a quick worker?


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## emanko

Loob said:


> Can I check what you're looking for?  Is it someone who always finishes tasks as soon as he receives them - someone who's a quick worker?


yes, exactly.


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## Loob

emanko said:


> yes, exactly.


Then the only thing that occurs to me is ~~ "quick worker".  Or "fast worker".  Maybe someone else will come up with something better.


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## TheEnglishCondor

Fast/Quick worker does have a negative connotation though, especially in connection with sexual conquest.

If referring to a "worker", why not use "an expediter"

.....

Hmmmm... the  opposite of procrastinate..... can I think about it?
_
(apologies if that joke has already been done)_


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## Loob

TheEnglishCondor said:


> If referring to a "worker", why not use "an expediter"


_Expediter _really wouldn't work for me.  My only experience of the term relates to my long-ago days working in a helicopter factory - it referred to those who chased up orders.


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## Le Gallois bilingue

A _“self starter” _to use some delightful “management speak”.


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## Roxxxannne

Being a self starter (or self-starter) doesnt necessarily mean that you finish on time. One can be self-starting and still procrastinate about finishing tasks.


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## Packard

I might describe such an individual as being “on the ball”.  It is a sports idiom meaning you keep your eyes on the ball.  That is you are keeping up with the action. 

on the ball

_On The Ball_


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