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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 91–120 of 183 ideas

• Take the other end of the pushchair

  Stations without lifts turn a pushchair into a trap. One person taking the front end solves it in twenty seconds.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Knock when you realize you have not seen someone

  Curtains shut two days running, bins not out, post building up. Noticing is common. Knocking is rare and occasionally decisive.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Answer the most junior person first

  Inboxes are triaged by seniority without anyone deciding to. Reversing it once a day costs you nothing.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Hand back what the machine gave you by mistake

  Money left in a cash machine or an overpaid change is someone's actual money, and they will notice.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Keep inviting after the diagnosis

  People stop inviting the seriously ill to ordinary things, assuming they cannot come. Being asked is the point.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Make the introduction you keep meaning to make

  You know two people who should meet. The introduction takes four minutes and you have owed it for months.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Decline to join the pile-on

  The hundredth reply telling someone they are wrong adds nothing except to the total weight landing on one person.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Leave the public toilet better than you found it

  Someone cleans that room several times a day. Thirty seconds of tidying is the most direct help you can give a stranger.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Find out who is on their own at Christmas

  People will not volunteer that they have nowhere to go. The question has to be asked directly and early.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Walk a lost person to the corner

  Directions are forgotten by the second turn. Walking someone to the point where they can see it is what works.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Answer the message you have been avoiding

  The longer a reply is owed the harder it gets, and the person waiting has usually assumed something worse than the truth.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Warn someone about the ticket they are about to get

  Thirty seconds of effort saves a stranger sixty pounds they very possibly cannot spare.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Learn the dog's name first, then the owner's

  The dog is the easiest introduction on any street, and the one conversation nobody finds intrusive.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Write down whether a place was actually accessible

  Step-free claims are frequently wrong, and disabled people plan whole days around information nobody has verified.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Tell the driver you are genuinely not in a hurry

  Taxi and delivery drivers assume every passenger wants speed. Saying otherwise removes a pressure they carry all day.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Remember the date everyone else forgot

  The anniversary of a death or a miscarriage is carried privately by one or two people and acknowledged by nobody.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Ask what they wish people would stop saying

  Everyone going through something hard has a list of well-meant phrases that make it worse. Nobody ever asks.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Copy their manager on the thank you

  A private thank you is kind. The same words with their manager copied in can change how someone's year is assessed.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Ask what they would make if you let them

  People who make things all day rarely get asked their opinion by the people they make them for.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Say something specific about their garden

  Someone is doing that for nobody's benefit but the street's, and almost certainly has never been told it was noticed.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Follow up on the thing they were dreading

  Ask about the interview, the scan, the difficult conversation — on the day it actually happens.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Talk to the person on the door

  Security staff stand in one place for twelve hours while thousands of people walk past without making eye contact.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Wave through the person with three things

  You have a full trolley and eleven minutes of unpacking ahead. They have a sandwich and a train to catch.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Cover the few pounds someone is short at the till

  Being short at a checkout with a queue behind you is a small public humiliation, and it is trivially preventable.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Vouch for someone you have only met online

  People build real reputations in communities that are invisible to employers. Saying so out loud transfers it.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Diarise the six-month mark

  After a death everyone appears for a fortnight and then vanishes. Month six is when the house is quietest.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Share it rather than commenting on it

  A comment reaches the person. A share reaches the audience they are actually trying to find.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Face them instead of raising your voice

  Shouting distorts speech and singles someone out. Facing them and slowing down works far better.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Say something kind to a parent having a bad time

  A toddler melting down in public means a parent convinced that everyone is judging them. Usually everyone is sympathetic and silent.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Offer to take the photo for the group

  Someone is always missing from the picture, and it is usually the person who organized the trip.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger