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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 151–180 of 183 ideas

• Check the thing before you share the outrage

  Thirty seconds of verification prevents you becoming the reason a false story reached another thousand people.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Send the job to the one person it suits

  Broadcasting a vacancy reaches nobody in particular. Sending it to one person with a reason changes their year.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Ask before you borrow, not after

  The drill, the ladder, the jump leads. Asking first turns a favor into a relationship instead of an awkward return.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Offer a menu, not an open question

  'Let me know if you need anything' puts the work of asking onto the person with least capacity to ask.

  5 minutesFreeA caregiver

• Send the thing that reminded you of them

  A link with 'this is so you' is proof you thought about someone when they were not there. That is the whole message.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Make the first move after a long silence

  Most estrangements are maintained by both sides waiting for the other, each assuming they are the wronged party.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Say it publicly, not just in the DM

  Private praise is nice. Public praise is a credential that can be pointed at, quoted and used.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Leave something out for the refuse crew at Christmas

  The crew that has taken your rubbish every week for a year passes your house in the dark in December.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Notice who has not spoken

  In most meetings two or three people never speak, and the reason is almost never that they have nothing to say.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Answer the beginner's question kindly

  The tone of the first reply someone gets determines whether they ask a second question, ever.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Tell the owner, not just the internet

  A small shop owner may never see the review. Saying it to their face is the version that reaches them.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Give to the unfashionable thing

  Money follows stories. Drainage, insurance and boiler repairs raise nothing and close more organizations than anything else.

  5 minutesMore than $10A stranger

• Tell someone about the mistake you made

  Sharing your own error is more useful than any advice, and far rarer, because it costs something to say.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Quietly cover the person who is skint

  Someone stops coming out because they cannot afford it, and tells everyone they are busy instead.

  5 minutesMore than $10A friend

• Tell someone their tire is going down

  A soft tire spotted in a car park is thirty seconds of mild awkwardness against a blowout at seventy.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Say the compliment you thought but did not say

  Most admiring thoughts about people we love are never spoken aloud, on the assumption that they already know.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Send the criticism privately and the praise publicly

  The default is backwards: people praise in private and criticize where everyone can see.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Ask the carer before you ask about the patient

  Every single conversation starts with how the ill person is doing. The carer is asked second, or not at all.

  5 minutesFreeA caregiver

• Ask the person crying in public if they are okay

  Everyone walks past. The calculation people make — that privacy is kinder — is usually wrong.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Be the easy customer at closing time

  The last half hour of a shift is when tiny inconveniences decide whether someone gets home on time.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Put the courgette glut on the wall

  Anyone who grows vegetables ends up with more than they can eat. Most of it is composted rather than offered.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Put a cold box out in a heatwave

  Delivery drivers, refuse crews and postal workers do forty-degree days on foot with no realistic way to stop.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Check on the friend who is visibly fine

  Support goes to people who are obviously struggling. The competent ones are assumed not to need any.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Introduce yourself to the neighbor you only nod at

  You have lived beside each other for years and exchanged nods. Neither of you can start the conversation in an emergency.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Leave a note for your mail carrier

  The person who walks to your door most days almost never hears from the people who live behind it.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger2 people did this

• Bring the trash cans back up

  Sixty seconds of your afternoon, and someone comes home to one less thing.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Leave quarters at the laundromat

  A few dollars in coins, left on the machines, for whoever counted wrong tonight.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Write the review for the small place

  For a business with forty reviews, one more genuinely moves the number. For a chain, it vanishes.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Ask about the person who died

  Grieving people are usually far more afraid of their person being forgotten than of being reminded.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Learn the name of someone you see every week

  There is probably someone you have exchanged a hundred nods with and never once asked.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger