The definition
Effective hourly value = net annual income ÷ (honest weekly hours × weeks actually worked). Net, because everything you would trade an hour against — a cleaner's quote, a business-class upgrade, a delegated task — is paid in after-tax money; valuing your hour in gross flatters every such trade by exactly your tax rate. Honest hours, because the commute, the evening calls and the Sunday inbox are hours the job takes whether or not the contract mentions them. The house uses 46 working weeks, leaving room for leave that actually happens.
On $240,000 net at 50 honest hours: about $104 an hour, $10,400 a week, $1.74 a minute. The paper week said $115+. The gap is the honesty discount, and it is where most bad time-money trades hide.
What the number governs
Delegation: a task quote below your effective hourly (adjusted for quality and oversight) is an arbitrage on your own time. Meetings: a standing hour with six attendees has a payroll cost someone should be able to say out loud. The commute: 45 minutes each way is five-plus working weeks a year, purchasable back through housing choices at a price this number can evaluate. Flights, queues, DIY weekends — the same coin throughout.
Two honest caveats
It is an average, not a marginal wage: you cannot necessarily sell one more hour at this price, but every quote and errand buys hours at it, which is the direction most decisions run. And it prices money only: an hour you love and an hour you hate clear the same figure here and nowhere else in your life — the number informs the trade, it doesn't feel it for you.
The house position
Your Effective Hourly Value prints the number per hour, day and minute — every other instrument on the Time desk, from Delegate or Do to the Standing Meeting Bill, spends it.