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Kind things you can do in five minutes

Nobody needs a free afternoon to be kind. These take about as long as waiting for a kettle, and most of them happen in the gaps of a day you were having anyway. If you have been meaning to do something and keep not getting to it, start here.

Showing 61–90 of 183 ideas

• Correct your own mistake where you made it

  Misinformation spreads further than corrections. Correcting yourself in the original place is the only version that works.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Find out who quietly fixed the thing

  Something broke, then it didn't. Somebody did that, usually out of hours, and nobody has said anything to them.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Let the car out

  Someone has been waiting at that junction for four minutes. It costs you eight seconds and they remember it.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Be the person who holds a spare key

  Almost nobody has a local key-holder any more, which turns a lost key into a locksmith call and a few hundred pounds.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Send the message that needs no reply

  People in crisis stop answering because every message is a task. One that closes itself is a gift.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Answer the question that has been sitting unanswered

  Someone asked in a channel two days ago and nobody replied. The silence is worse than a no.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Invite the child everyone stops inviting

  Parents of disabled children describe the birthday party invitations drying up as the loneliest part.

  5 minutesFreeA caregiver

• Reply to the post with nothing under it

  Posting something you made and getting silence is worse than not posting. One reply changes the whole experience.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Do the bins for the house where it is getting hard

  Wheeling a heavy bin down an icy path is one of the small tasks that quietly becomes dangerous with age.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Review the tradesperson who did it properly

  For a small trade, online reviews are most of the marketing budget. One honest paragraph is worth real money to them.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Take back two trolleys instead of one

  Collecting trolleys in the rain is somebody's whole shift. Two at a time halves a specific, miserable job.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Fix the wrong thing on the map

  Wrong opening hours send someone across town for nothing. Anyone can correct them and almost nobody does.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Learn the name of whoever cleans your office

  They are in the building every day and structurally invisible, often working before anyone arrives or after everyone leaves.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Send the carer the card, not the household

  Cards and gifts go to the patient or to the family. The carer receives almost nothing addressed to them alone.

  5 minutesUnder $10A caregiver

• Stand up before anyone has to ask

  Asking for a seat means announcing a pregnancy, an illness or a disability to a carriage of strangers.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Talk to the person, not over them

  People who are ill or disabled are routinely discussed in the third person while sitting in the room.

  5 minutesFreeA caregiver

• Stand next to someone being harassed

  Intervening directly can escalate. Standing beside the person and talking to them usually does not.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Pick up what fell out of someone's bag

  Gloves, cards, a child's toy. The owner will not discover the loss until it is far too late to retrace.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Check on the one who held it together

  At every funeral one person organizes everything. They are the last to be asked how they are, often by months.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Hold the lift for whoever is carrying something

  Cleaners, porters and delivery staff with loaded trolleys wait for lifts far longer than anyone with free hands.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Put back the bins that blew over

  After a windy collection day the street is strewn with other people's bins and rubbish. It takes one person ten minutes.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Put your number through a door

  Most neighbors have no way to reach each other. One card through a letterbox fixes that for years.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Offer your wifi when their internet goes down

  For anyone working from home, an outage is a lost day of pay. A password shared over the fence gets it back.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Give a visitor the real recommendation

  Tourists get sent to the thing on the map. Locals know the version two streets away that is better and cheaper.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Take the appointment nobody wants

  The 8am slot, the Friday afternoon, the awkward gap. Someone has to take them, and flexibility is a thing you can give away.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Step aside early on a narrow pavement

  Whoever moves first is usually whoever is least able to. Deciding to be the one who moves is free.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Review the small place that is not struggling yet

  People review businesses when they are closing or failing. The useful time is before that.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Go back in and say the food was good

  Kitchen staff never meet the people who ate what they made. The feedback loop is completely severed.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Write the delivery note before they arrive

  Most failed deliveries are a driver guessing. Three sentences of instruction saves a doorstep conversation and a wasted trip.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Warn the parent who has not seen it

  A toddler heading for a road or a pond. The parent is two seconds behind and has not looked up.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger