What’s keeping you from doing your job –I mean your real job?
Remember? The job you signed up for – practicing sports medicine. I know I signed up to provide care for collegiate student-athletes aspiring to make it big. I signed up to help and I know the vast majority of you did too. Unfortunately, as time passed I found myself practicing sports medicine less and less and spending more and more time filling water bottles, filing insurance claims and cleaning up at the end of the day.
I also remember the day it all changed back to the way I envisioned.
It was the day I decided to stop doing the “3-C’s” and started practicing sports medicine again. Tom Cronin, a mentor of mine and the Director of Sports Medicine at MIT in Boston, told me about the “3-C’s” over breakfast as I was complaining to him about all the work I was doing. He kindly pointed out to me that the majority of my work day was not being spent doing the work that I signed up for, but instead work consisting of the “3-C’s” – Catering, Clerical and Custodial. If you could manage to take away all the tasks involving any one of the “3-C’s” how much time would you have left in the day to actually practice your craft? No more cleaning whirlpools, filling water bottles or chasing down insurance companies for authorization of services (I had a co-worker who once proudly told me they sat on the phone for over 40 minutes obtaining pre-authorization for an MRI – how many patients could you have seen and cared for during that same time?)
So when you walk into work tomorrow, find just one task that is keeping you from actually doing your job and stop doing it.
There, feels good right?
Now get back to doing your job! The real job you signed up for.
Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA. He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.
