Collections
Start from a situation
Almost everybody wants to help and stops at not knowing what would actually land. Each of these is a short list of things that do — for one situation, in the order they are usually needed, with a line on why each one belongs.
Things you can do this week
Nothing here needs a crisis, a free weekend or anybody's permission.
When someone is new here
For a new neighbor, a new colleague, or someone new to the country: the things that decide whether a person ends up belonging somewhere.
12 ideas
When you are the one who got it wrong
Repair, which almost nobody is taught: how to apologize without turning it into an argument, and how to go back after a long silence.
8 ideas
When the child is not yours
For a nephew, a friend's kid, a pupil, the child at the next table: the things another adult can do that a parent cannot do for their own child.
12 ideas
When the place was not built for them
Access, in the ordinary sense: the toilet, the curb, the aisle, the captions. Most of it is about not taking something that was never yours.
13 ideas
When you want to start something
For the street, the club, the group chat: the unglamorous parts that decide whether a good intention turns into a thing that exists.
10 ideas
When you are the one with more
Money, information or contacts you have and somebody else does not — and the things you can do with them that cost you almost nothing.
9 ideas
When someone is going through something
The ones people most want to help with and least know how to. Written plainly, because vagueness is what stops anybody acting.
When someone has died
What to actually do for someone who has just been bereaved, in the first week and in the year afterwards when everyone else has stopped asking.
10 ideas
When someone is caring for someone
Practical things for carers, who are usually offered sympathy and almost never offered two hours, a form filled in, or a night off.
12 ideas
When someone is ill
What helps during a long illness or after a bad diagnosis, including the things people stop doing exactly when they are most needed.
10 ideas
When someone is on their own
For people who are alone more than they want to be, where the useful thing is almost always something repeating rather than something kind once.
10 ideas
When money is the problem
How to help with money without making someone say out loud that they need it, which is the part that stops people accepting help.
10 ideas
When the paperwork is the problem
Forms, letters and systems, which defeat people for reasons that have nothing to do with how capable they are.
9 ideas
This time of year
The same library, for the weeks it matters most in.
When it turns cold
The first proper cold week is when a set of small, ordinary jobs stop being ordinary for the people on your street who are least able to do them.
10 ideas
The weeks around Christmas
Kind things for the season that mostly involve noticing who it is hard for: the people alone, the people working, and the people paying for it.
11 ideas
The people you go home to
Nothing here needs a crisis or a stranger. These are the people who see you at your worst and get the least of your best.
Kind things to do for the person you live with
The person who sees you at your worst and gets the least of your best. Small, specific, and mostly unsaid.
8 ideas
Kind things to do for ageing parents and relatives
Most of these are easy now and impossible later. That is the entire reason they are grouped together.
8 ideas
Not only people
Kind things with a recipient who cannot thank you, tell anybody, or know it was you.
Looking for something else? Search the whole library, or browse by who it is for.