I shudder to think how much time I wasted designing it, because I never actually used it.

Hours aren't a great way to measure journalism. Nor are they much use in assessing the output of most other white-collar jobs. Some research is done at a desk between 9am and 5pm; some happens at night while on the phone, reading a book or surfing the web. In my pre-parenthood days, I'd spend almost twice as long in the office as I do now, but work far less efficiently. (I recall a lot of time spent on coffee, ''planning'', ''researching'' soccer news, staring at the ceiling, etc). These days, I sometimes don't bother commuting to Fyshwick because, after the trips to my children's preschool and whatnot, it's simpler to work at home than spend an extra hour on the road.

Yet time remains the main means, formal and informal, by which many public servants' work is valued. Most of the government workforce - those employed below executive level 1 - diligently record their hours on ''flexitime'' sheets. If they work longer than the arbitrary 7 hours 21 minutes or so, they're rewarded with time off. ''Hard workers'' are those who arrive at their workplace before their colleagues and who are seen to be toiling away after sunset.

Time spent in the office may be a useful gauge for, say, a call-centre staff's work. But most public servants aren't hired to answer phones. Australian Public Service recruitment criteria centre on less tangible skills, such as ''thinking strategically'', integrity, and the ability to communicate and negotiate. It's hard to measure the work that these skills create. A brief for a minister, for example, should be clear, thorough and succinct, but it must also be timely. Sometimes, the more hours and people involved in preparing and editing a brief, the less useful it becomes.

The centrality of the office in working life also encourages that most vile form of modern torture: the meeting. Sure, some meetings are necessary; a handful may even be informative. I'm lucky enough to work in an industry that scoffs at the notion of weekly agendas, minutes and PowerPoint presentations, because they'd get in the way of deadlines. At this newspaper, if we need to be told something, a manager will gather us together for a few minutes and tell us. If we want to know something, we ask. If we want to share an idea, we find the relevant people and share it.

However, such an environment seems rare in this town. This week, I spent an evening at my local primary school, where teachers spoke at great length about the philosophies that underpinned the curriculum. Their presentations were even scattered with concept diagrams, which I assume were included to make the public-service parents feel at home.

One public servant told me recently she was always stressed the day before a section meeting, because she needed to bake a cake that was deemed good enough for her colleagues. When I asked what the meetings were about, she replied: ''The cakes.''

There's an awful lot of talk at the moment about decentralising the public service; taking agencies out of Canberra's tight labour market and shifting them to cities that have more skilled workers.

But maybe we're discussing the wrong kind of decentralisation. Perhaps the government should be encouraging office-free working lives, or at least jobs for which attending an office is optional or occasional. It'd certainly be cheaper. The problem, though, is that managers would need to genuinely assess the work their staff do, rather than simply record their hours.

Markus Mannheim edits The Public Sector Informant. Send your tips to aps6@canberratimes.com.au