Do you have a goal in mind for how much you want to earn per year from your internet business?

$10,000?
$50,000?
$1,000,000?

The amount isn't the important thing here. What's important is whether you've ever actually worked out how much you need to make per hour to earn your goal.

Let's say you want to earn $100,000 per year from your internet business.

Now let's assume you're going to stick to a traditional work schedule - 2 weeks of holidays and five 8 hour work days each week.

That means you'll need to make $2,000 per week (50 weeks x $2,000 = $100,000).

$2,000 per week breaks down to $400 per day, which over an 8 hour day means you need to make $50 per hour.

With that $50/hour wage in mind, you can now look objectively at a whole bunch of things, both in your business and in your personal life.

How long does it take you to write an article for your website? If it takes you a half an hour, that article cost $25. An hour - $50.

Can you outsource that writing for less than what it costs for you to do it yourself?

What about answering customer service emails? How long do you spend doing that every day?

Let's say you spend 1 hour a day answering email - it's costing you $50. Can you outsource that for less money?

How about your personal life? How much time do you spend watching TV every day?

Two hours? You know it's costing you $100 to watch TV for those two hours, right?

Once you put a hard value on your time, it's a lot easier to decide whether or not you should be doing any activity.

Sure, when you're first starting out you might not have the money to outsource these things, but you should plan to do so as soon as you start seeing some profit.

And of course, your hourly value will increase according to what you want to make in a year.

$200,000 - $100/hour
$500,000 - $250/hour
$1,000,000 - $500/hour

And it also increases if you want to work fewer hours:

$100,000 @ 20 hours a week - $100/hour
$200,000 @ 20 hours a week - $200/hour
$500,000 @ 20 hours a week - $500/hour
$1,000,000 @ 20 hours a week - $1000/hour

Let's look at an extreme number, based on the 4 Hour Work Week book.

To earn $1,000,000 a year while working only 4 hours a week you would need to be earning $5,000 per hour.

At that point, the two hours of TV would be "costing" you $10,000. Is American Idol really that valuable?

I encourage you to do this exercise for yourself, using your income goal and the number of hours you can expect to work every week.

I have a feeling you'll start to look at all those time-wasting activities in a whole new light.