If you were sitting on your deathbed, having been just told you have one single hour to live, how much would a second hour of life be worth to you? $100? $1000? Every cent you have? Chances are, at that point in your life, nothing would be worth more than another hour to spend with your friends, family, loved ones, or even just sitting under a tree, listening to the birds sing. Or maybe you would ask for just enough time for a quick nine rounds of golf on the public course?

So there's no question we'd value our time more when we know we have only a little left, but why does it take us so long to get to that mindset? We know we'll all die eventually, we know our time on this earth is limited, so why do we trade hours of our existence for minimum wage? Why do we slave at a job we hate for just $12 an hour, or $15 an hour, or even $30 an hour? Why don't we enjoy our time, rather than sell it off at rock bottom prices?

The answer to that is simplewe need cash. But rather than take the time to set up a situation where we make money for doing nothing, we do it the old fashioned, short-term thinking waywe go to work. We let someone else play golf, while we sit in a cubicle and help pay his or her mortgage off.

So why not make the change? Why not take the plunge and start a home-based business? Why not be the guy who strolls around a golf course working on his chip shot while others work for us, or while customers send you bags of money for maybe an hour of work each day?

Why not indeed.

Today's online world offers a litany of home-based business opportunities, from mail order businesses to consignment programs, to affiliate systems, to sub-contracting opportunities, and even the age-old multi-level marketing routine.

The first question to ask yourself is 'what do you want to do for a living'?

If you're a golf freak, you might say you want to be out on the course, so why not start there? The world of golf holds many possibilities, from selling golf products and accessories online, to creating a golf web portal with dozens of affiliate program ads hanging off it, to selling ebooks on how to improve your swing.

But those are just the home-based business ideas that everyone else is working onin order to really set yourself apart and make ongoing passive income for minimal effort in return, you need to think outside the box, and make effort early to set things up so they can earn more and more over time.

There's no such thing as a 'get rich quick' home based business that pays you tens of thousands right away. Well, okay, maybe it exists somewhere, but systems that pay out large sums quickly invariably fall on their ear soon after. To really establish a business that pays you every week for eternity, you need to plan, work smart, invest a small amount of money and a large amount of time.