What is the most precious commodity on the face of the Earth? If you’re a successful business professional, your answer most certainly is going to be time. It’s the one thing that helps us succeed the most, and it’s the one thing that always seems to be in the shortest of supply. As a business professional or executive, your days revolve around schedules, meetings, workloads, due dates…time, time, and time.

When you start to think about adding something to that already jam-packed schedule, you probably start to cringe. Trust me, we get it. If you’re someone who is looking to find your partner in crime, you’re probably confused about how you’re going to ever fit that into your busy schedule. You have to find someone you’re interested in, get to know them, go on dates with them, and somehow you are supposed to do all of this within the confines of your busy schedule and with a smile on your face.

We’re here to help. In this post, we’re going to walk you through a few things you need to be aware of to make time to date as a professional single. It’s still going to take time, but there are ways you can shift things around and strategies you can employ to make the process much smoother and more efficient.

If you’d like to see a complete breakdown of this topic, check out our complete dating as a business professional guide. Below you’ll see an excerpt infographic from the guide talking about why things are so challenging for business professionals.

Utilize Online Dating the Right Way

As a business professional, you probably understand the important role that technology plays in helping you be more efficient in your job. If technology is helping you so much at work, why not let it help you in the dating realm? Online dating sites have come a long way over the past few decades and are now a great resource to help you find that special someone.

The technology, the ability to sort matches, and the ability to filter are just a few of the things that dating sites are offering to help you in the process. Additionally, online dating sites that cater to business professionals are popping up cutting down on the riff-raff and the flaky matches that aren’t serious about the process. Every worthless date you go on or get stood up for is wasted time that you could be dedicating to someone who matters.

Take advantage of the tools and technologies offered through the sites that cater to singles like you. If you let the technology work for you, it can significantly cut down on the time that it takes to find that special someone.

Organize Your Priorities Properly

You cannot outsource getting to know someone. You cannot outsource finding someone that you’re interested in. We wish that were possible, but ultimately this is something that is too personal to entrust to someone other than yourself. What you need to realize is that this is going to take some time and a commitment on your part. The quicker that you realize that it’s not going to magically happen on its own, the quicker you can start formulating a plan to get what you want and what you deserve.

The best place to start is realizing how important finding that special someone is to you. If it’s not that important, you’re never going to make it a priority, and it’s never going to happen. But, if it truly is that important to you (which we think it should be), you need to reflect that in how you spend your time.

Start looking for ways you can carve out some extra time in your schedule. It does not take hours every day to find someone. Start small and be open with the people that you are talking to. If you can carve out 10-15 minutes a day somewhere to start filling out your profile, searching, and responding to messages, you’re off to a great start. Maybe this means getting up a few minutes early? Maybe it means doing some of this on one of your breaks? Maybe it means altering your commute time to free up a few extra minutes?

Whatever you have to do to create that extra time, you need to do it. Be open with your matches as well about your busy schedule. If they are someone worth their weight in gold, they are going to be understanding and will be patient with you. Don’t expect them to be patient if you don’t tell them your situation, though. You have to communicate things well and then hope for the best. If someone is not willing to be patient with you through the getting to know each other process, they probably aren’t someone that is worth your time anyways. Consider it a blessing in disguise.

The Final Word

Ultimately, it’s going to come down to you prioritizing your life and finding the time. Most of the singles we’ve talked to that said they had no free time just weren’t looking hard enough. Online dating does not take hours. It takes a few minutes a day to get started and chatting with potential singles. When it’s time to date, you don’t have to go on several hour long dates. Meet for coffee for 20 minutes. Grab one drink after work for half an hour. Communicate with them how busy you are from the start, and if they are willing to be patient, that should be a very good sign.