What is your time worth?

Step 1: How to Track Your Time
The first step is to measure the total amount of time you invest to earn money, not just the hours you are physically at work. For example, if you spend one hour commuting to work each day and eight hours at work, then it cost you nine hours to earn money that day. Similarly, you should add in any time you spent working on a side hustle or dropping your kids off at daycare. Using these numbers, we are trying to get a complete picture of the total amount of time you invest each year to earn money.

If you struggle to come up with an estimate for your time, you're not alone. Most people only have a vague sense of where their 24 hours go each day. If you're unsure how much time you spend working, I recommend using 2,500 hours per year as a starting point.

Here's why:

Let’s say you spend 10 hours per day either at work, commuting to work, or doing tasks related to work. With a five day workweek, that’s 50 hours per week. And if you work 50 weeks per year (2 weeks off for vacation), then that’s 2,500 hours per year. I'll leave it to you to make adjustments based on your specific circumstances, but for most full-time employees or entrepreneurs, I think 2,500 hours will get you in the right ballpark.

Step 2: How to Track How Much Money You Earn
The second factor you need to know is how much money you earned during the time you spent working.

This is pretty simple. If you're an hourly worker or a salaried employee, just look at your latest paycheck and multiply that by the number of paychecks you receive per year. If your pay hasn't changed much this year, you can also look at your tax return from last year and just use that number. You should also include money from side hustles and freelancing gigs because the time you spent on those activities is included in Step 1.

The number we are trying to calculate is your take-home pay. This is the amount of money you have left after deducting taxes. For most employees, taxes are withheld from your paycheck, so your take-home pay is basically what you get paid. If you are a business owner, however, you should deduct taxes and business expenses from your top-line revenue.

Step 3: Calculate the Value of Your Time
Finally, divide your total money earned (Step 2) by your total time spent (Step 1).

For example, let's say you spend 2,500 hours per year earning money:

If you make $12,316/year, your time is worth $4.93/hour. This is the 2014 poverty line for an individual in the United States.
If you make $46,226/year, your time is worth $18.49/hour. This is the 2014 median income for women in the United States.
If you make $62,455/year, your time is worth $24.98/hour. This is the 2014 median income for men in the United States.
If you make $100,000/year, your time is worth $40.00/hour.
If you make $1,000,000/year, your time is worth $400.00/hour.
Again, all of these numbers assume that you are working 2,500 hours per year. Obviously, the numbers will shift if you work more hours or fewer hours.

extract from ttp://jamesclear.com/value-of-tim