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I thought of precrastination at first but that appears to be the act of planning to procrastinate.

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concrastination? – Avner Shahar-Kashtan Mar 1 '12 at 18:23
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I'll get back to you on this. – Robusto Mar 1 '12 at 18:29
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procrastinate -> anticrastinate! obviously. – JoséNunoFerreira Mar 2 '12 at 15:44
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The opposite of procrastinate is technically "PhD". But that's an abbreviation for multiple words. – detly Mar 2 '12 at 16:00
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@detly: I would have thought "PhD" is an example of procrastination... – haylem Mar 3 '12 at 16:07
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17 Answers

up vote 36 down vote

If to procrastinate is "to put off doing something," then its antonym is anticipate — "to deal with beforehand."

So you can say the opposite of procrastination is anticipation.

If you can live with more than one word, a clearer antonym of procrastination is being proactive. Being proactive doesn't carry the extraneous associations that anticipation might for some people.

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Proactive is a much better word than anticipate, in my opinion. When I hear "John anticipates doing his homework," I get the mental image of John being excited, even happy, to do his homework each night. If I hear "John is proactive about doing his homework," then I get a much more realistic picture. – Reid Mar 1 '12 at 21:12
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To procrastinate is "to delay something needlessly", I don't think that 'anticipate' captures the antonym. – Ahmed Masud Mar 2 '12 at 7:11
up vote 24 down vote

I suggest alacrity.

alacrity noun \ə-ˈla-krə-tē\

promptness in response : cheerful readiness [accepted the invitation with alacrity]

Also precipitation means acting suddenly and rashly, bearing a negative meaning and covering the other end of the spectrum.

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I like this very much. Alacrity is a good answer here. – Mike Brown Mar 2 '12 at 13:31
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+1 one because it is fun to say – user14070 Mar 2 '12 at 14:04
up vote 17 down vote

You could go with "timeliness." Notionally, "proactive" gets at the sense of the word you want, but it's the wrong part of speech.

Other candidates: advance, accelerate, complete, etc.

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+1 The relevance here is that the spirit of procrastination is in putting off something till later, timeliness is not putting off something till later, but rather doing it on time. @gnawme referenced anticipation and proactive, which are close, but the spirit with them is doing or thinking about something before it is due, rather than on-time. A little bit different. – Bill Mar 1 '12 at 23:18
I think this is clearly the best answer. It's the only one that really stands in polarity on the the correct axis. – Ben Lee Mar 3 '12 at 1:47
up vote 9 down vote

Prioritization

In Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" the author refers to the opposite of procrastination as prioritization in his chapter on "First Things First".

This is honestly the only word that makes sense in every day speech. No one would say to anticipate one's tasks, but it makes a lot of sense to prioritize one's tasks.

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There is indeed an understanding that procrastination is to replace high-priority tasks with lower ones. In that point of view prioritize is the perfect antonym. – Renan Mar 2 '12 at 0:16
up vote 6 down vote

I believe the word you are looking for is action.

action noun

  1. the process or state of acting or of being active: The machine is not in action now.
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I sense we are lone voices in the wilderness here, but I agree. To procrastinate is to delay instead of acting, so the opposite is to act instead of delaying. When urgent problems need to be addressed, you don't need procrastination, you need action. – FumbleFingers Mar 2 '12 at 2:21
Seems somebody disagrees... – Jim Mar 2 '12 at 14:04
up vote 6 down vote

I like the word expedite, "to accelerate the progress of". It has a minor drawback that the form parallel to procrastination, that is, expedition, ordinarily has the sense of an excursion or voyage, and its sense "the quality of being expedite" is obsolete. However, some synonyms of expedite, such as hasten, speed, hurry, accelerate have suitable forms including hastening, speedup, speeding-up, hurry-up, acceleration that may serve.

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up vote 4 down vote

Do. Hmm, well it won't let me answer that succinctly so I'll repeat myself: the opposite of procrastinate is do.

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up vote 3 down vote

Maybe industry or industriousness. Although as opposites, they imply an element of laziness exists with procrastination, and I'm not sure that's always the case.

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up vote 3 down vote

The opposite Greek prefix to pro- is epi-, as seen in Prometheus (forethought) and his brother Epimetheus (afterthought). So it stands to reason that the antonym of procrastination is epicrastination.

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But this is the Latin prefix, not the Greek prefix. And I'm afraid it would be odd to use "cras" ("tomorrow") to move something to an earlier time... – Cerberus Mar 1 '12 at 21:17
@Cerberus: Oops, that's unfortunate. Hoist by my own octopus. – chaos Mar 1 '12 at 21:36
Sticking to Latin, and taking the opposite of tomorrow, now, it should be innunctiation then (into now). I have a feeling this one is not gonna make it... – GertArnold Mar 2 '12 at 10:08
maybe antecrastinate before tomorrow ;) – Mike Brown Mar 2 '12 at 13:33
up vote 2 down vote

What about simply "zeal" or "diligence"?

While these aren't really antonyms to "procrastination" (which is putting off doing something), they capture the opposite meaning of the ideas of "laziness" and "delayed action" that are associated with it.

zeal

Noun: Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.

          The fervor or tireless devotion for a person, cause, or ideal and
          determination in its furtherance; diligent enthusiasm; powerful
          interest.

diligence

Noun: Careful and persistent work or effort.

          Diligence is a zealous and careful nature in one's actions and work,
          exemplified by a decisive work ethic, budgeting of one's time, monitoring
          one's own activities to guard against laziness, and putting forth full
          concentration in one's work.
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+1 for zeal, it was the word that jumped to my mind on seeing the question – sq33G Mar 4 '12 at 7:27
up vote 1 down vote

I propose dispatch:

: to dispose of (as a task) rapidly or efficiently

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That isn't quite an antonym. Procrastinate has an implicit referral to another time period in it. So, the opposite should carry with it the meaning that something is done in advance of when it needs to be done. Good effort though. – James Poulson Mar 3 '12 at 6:43
up vote 1 down vote

Anticrastination appears to have gained some traction.

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When the first result is from Urban Dictionary, I wouldn't say that this traction is anything reliable. – Mahnax Mar 1 '12 at 20:13
@Mahnax: I would be at pains to avoid that implication, yes. – chaos Mar 1 '12 at 20:57
"Anti" is a Greek preposition, not a Latin one. It is true that it is sometimes mistakenly used instead of Latin "ante" (probably owing to French), but better not. And cras "tomorrow" doesn't really work anyway... – Cerberus Mar 1 '12 at 21:19
Actually, I like antecrastination. It seems to imply that I'll do the job BEFORE tomorrow. Which might be what the OP wants. – user16269 Mar 2 '12 at 7:41
up vote 1 down vote

Dialogue in comments has revealed that the correct Latin inverse would be antecrastination, which would mean roughly "doing something before tomorrow".

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up vote 0 down vote

The emotional emphasis in "to procrastinate" is the needlessness of the delay. The way I would think of antonyms would be to see what words I would use to emphasize the negation:

For example,

"Billy is diligent about finishing homework, he does not procrastinate". (Sense of duty)

OR

"Sarah procrastinates under stress, I wish she were more volitional" (Sense of giving up)

My suggestion is that you try and use it following similar idea of trying to emphasize a particular idea or thought, and see how many ways you can use procrastinate in a sentence... You'll have your antonyms.

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up vote 0 down vote

Two neologisms present themselves, one I like and one I don't.

One is sticktoitive. A tenacity or tendency to see things through to completion.

The other is git-r-done.

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up vote 0 down vote

I suggest "determination", which stems from determinare, to bring to an end, have a fixed direction and goal.

Other terms may be decisiveness, resoluteness, conclusiveness.

I might tell my minions that I want to see "action", not procrastination.

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up vote 0 down vote

Tersely: proactiveness or proaction, depending on the contrast and degree of anticipatory behavior you're trying to convey.

(Source.)

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