I am going through an “accreditation” process right now for work. For the first time in a long time I am reading books with a highlighter in one hand, writing papers and even developing a Personal Growth Plan.

The whole growth plan thing is quite an exercise. I have to assess things like my personal capacity and stage of life, receive feedback from influential people around me and come up with action steps and goals. It is a good exercise in humility to hear from others the ways in which they think you need to develop. On my own I have come up with quite a list. The challenge is to set a clear focus and reasonable goals, recognizing too that there is no easy formula for all this. I do always find there to be this interesting tension between being present to the moment and preparing for the future. I’m still looking for the balance.

One of the things I want to work on is curbing the tendency to procrastinate. In many ways I am a decent time manager, especially given the number of roles I have. Sometimes though…oh dear…procrastination rears its head and I put off that thing that I really shouldn’t. Every single time this happens I swear I won’t let it happen again. Ha.

I need to come up with some focus words and I’m convinced that there must be a good one that means the opposite of ‘procrastinate’ or ‘procrastinator’.  I’ve asked some of my wordsmith friends, looked around the internet and pulled out my beloved dictionary (yes, I love a good dictionary), but have yet to land on a word that captures it. According to the Urban Dictionary a definition of procrastinator is: One who will do anything, including spending an entire day looking up random words on urban dictionary, to get out of doing work. This habit often has a terrible effect on that person’s relationships, work, or grades. Ouch.

Since it would be rather sad if I put off finding a word that means ‘to not procrastinate’, I’m looking for help. Does anything come to mind? My personal growth plan and I will thank you.