By: Dr. Chris Downs

When I first opened my consulting business, I experienced a mix of fear, hope, uncertainty, ambiguity, and occasional euphoria. From the time I opened my eyes in the morning until I finally dropped off to sleep at night, I was driven to do one thing: market my skills and company to secure clients who would pay for my services.

I didn’t wait long. Within weeks, I had three clients: (1) a national keynote address at a high-profile national conference, (2) a data analysis job for an east coast non-profit, and (3) a strategic consultation with a local, Seattle-area agency. Weeks bled into months, and before I realized it, I’d been in business for over a year. Those three clients blossomed into nine and things looked good!

Then, I learned an important lesson. I got a notice from the Washington State Secretary of State that my annual report and associated fees were overdue.

That wasn’t like me! I faithfully paid my own mortgage and credit cards every month and kept a close eye on important holidays, birthdays and anniversaries of friends and family. But when the Secretary of State’s office contacted me, I realized I had to faithfully track the due dates for my company’s mandated reports and state and local fees to keep my company in good standing with my state and city.

While you may be a wizard at monitoring upcoming deadlines and required business reports, I found it deceptively easy to let due dates fly by. These usually happened when I was buried in a client’s project or when I was spending most of my time hustling for new business.

One of the most important tips I can give you about running a consulting business is this: do not put off mandated meetings, reports, or payments. Put these in your calendar (electronic or paper) and put “head’s up” notifications about these well in advance of the actual due dates.

For instance, for my company’s annual report to my state, I put alerts into my iCalendar, one month in advance and two weeks in advance of the due date. The multiple reminders haven’t let me down yet, despite periods of intense work and travel.

Please don’t procrastinate. Plan ahead. Set calendar alerts to remind yourself of pending due dates and get those reports filied!

Have you missed an important due date? Were there consequences? What did you do to make sure it didn’t happen again?

Learn more about procrastination, reporting, and timeliness in “Solo Consulting: Insider Tips for Success.”

Notice: This blog wholly reflects the views and suggestions of Dr. Chris Downs. Readers’ use of his views or suggestions are wholly the responsibility of the reader as reflected by their actions, reactions thoughts, statements, and behaviors. Dr. Downs accepts no responsibility for readers’ use of his words. Further, this blog contains no intentional or structured therapeutic intent nor is the content designed to harm or improve the psychological state of the reader. Readers are responsible for their own reactions to and/or use of any and all suggestions or advice.