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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 197 ideas
Name the person when the feedback is good
Complaints always name the individual. Praise almost always says 'the staff', which is unusable by a manager.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Not rated yet
Answer the question you just solved, publicly
You spent two hours fixing something. The forum thread that nearly helped you has no answer on it.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Not rated yet
Let someone pay for you
Always insisting on paying can be a way of staying the one who gives. Accepting is its own kindness.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Not rated yet
Watch the empty house on your street
Probate and repossession leave houses empty for months. A neighbor noticing is usually the only security they have.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Not rated yet
Find out who is not allowed to accept tips
Many of the people who help you most are barred from taking money. Something small they can accept works instead.
5 minutesUnder $10A stranger
Not rated yet
Tell someone their free thing was useful
People maintaining open resources get bug reports and complaints. They almost never hear that it worked.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Not rated yet
Say out loud that it is not their fault
Front-line staff absorb anger for decisions made by people the customer will never meet.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Not rated yet
Stack it the way they would
Clearing your table is common. Stacking it the way the person collecting it actually needs is rarer and more useful.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
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Take the photograph nobody is taking
In the last months of an illness, families stop taking pictures. Afterwards those are the ones they want most.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Not rated yet
Use the dead person's name
People avoid the name to protect the grieving. The effect is that the person disappears from every conversation.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Not rated yet
Find out which house has the new baby
New parents are at home, awake at odd hours, and more isolated than anyone assumes. A knock is worth more at week six than week one.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Not rated yet
Say whose idea it actually was
Ideas get repeated by louder people and absorbed by the room. Ten words of attribution puts it back where it belongs.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Not rated yet
Ask the second question
Most conversations stop at the first answer. The interesting part is one question further in, and almost nobody goes.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
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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
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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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
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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 $10An organization
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet
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
Not rated yet