My hashtag on LinkedIn: #timeforreading

You might have seen some posts with the hashtag #timeforreading , especially if my name is among your contacts on Linkedin. Sharing articles with this hashtag is a small activity that I do every day. Luckily, this effort reaches many people and, eventually, it makes them follow and add me as a contact. That’s a lovely way to connect with more people. 

The first formula of #timeforreading was somehow inspired by the McKinsey’s FiveFifty, which is a quarterly newsletter that offers a five-minutes-read as an intro to multiple resources of about one-hour-read. By posting articles, I get connected with people, we share contents and opinions, and by doing so, we keep in touch on the long term.

Why this hashtag?

The primary and very first idea was to inspire people for reading 5 minutes per day, no more than that, just the time of an article, which means making a small but meaningful effort every day. As Stephen King wrote:

“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book.”

We are part of the “fast-paced society”, everything goes super quick, and sometimes we don’t even have time to stop for thinking. So I chose to propose reading articles rather than not-reading at all. Thus, pushing the big audience in reading books seems to be not aligned with today’s habits -unfortunately-, even those who read books claim that they’ve read a book per week or per day! I mean, those moments of enjoyment -while relaxing at home with a hot drink- are not so ordinary anymore. I do publish pics of the books that I read, but the meaning of this hashtag is different: make one small step, every day.

Why doing it?

The main reason is the concept of the hashtag, I love spreading the knowledge by following the motto “sharing is caring”, we all grow if we are together, and I learn something every time that I read because any text is the synthesis of someone else’s time.

Additionally, it’s an archive; it's public research accessible by everyone. Very often someone asks me for some links that I’ve published earlier on, or others ask if I’m informed about a specific topic as they are in search of good contents. And whenever I can’t recall to something specific, I just type the hashtag and a keyword on LinkedIn, and boom: “les jeux sont faits” (“The game has been played”). 

When did it start?

I’ve always been active on Linkedin, between 2014 and 2016 I’ve spontaneously started to brand my posts with a hashtag #FindTimeForReadingEveryday, which then evolved into #timeXreading, and then #timeforsharing. Then, on October 2017 I’ve branded the first post with #timeforreading. (you can go back in the history of my posts to double check;) )

What’s before it?

I have always loved translating thoughts into words. To me writing it’s a therapeutic activity, it allows me to clarify my thoughts. But before claiming something officially, you still have to do proper research to validate your thinking. And this makes me jump on the giants’ shoulders. By doing so, I can mix my own intuition with the contents of those greater than me. So the #timeforreading is the inspiration and the support of my own thoughts.

I‘ve been writing since I was a kid, I wrote a little book -a romance, I wrote erotic stories for a sex-related blog, I wrote reviews of Hip Hop albums, I wrote lyrics, I interviewed Italian singers, etc. But only later on I’ve merged my passion for writing with my love for the design. My first article on Design was about 2016.

After taking so much from all the readings and the ones that will come, #timeforreading represents my give to everyone. It’s a small but meaningful activity to inspire others and to keep myself active, especially to remind myself that a tiny step every day will make the length of my whole journey.