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Kind things to do from home
From your kitchen table or your front step. Several of these are aimed at people who come to your door regularly and have never been thanked by anyone inside it.
Showing 1–30 of 146 ideas
Talk to the one who married in
Every family gathering has somebody who knows none of the stories, and everybody is assuming somebody else is talking to them.
Half an hourFreeA relative
Rated higher · 1 person rated this
Ask whether it can be repaired, before you buy it
One question at the point of purchase decides the next ten years of that object.
5 minutesFreeThe planet
Rated higher · 1 person rated this
Invite the new family twice
The first invitation is often declined out of uncertainty. The second is the one that establishes it was real.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Rated higher · 1 person rated this
Explain how the system here actually works
Registering with a doctor, council tax, school places. Obvious to you, opaque and consequential to a newcomer.
An afternoonFreeA neighbor1 person did this
Rated higher · 1 person rated this
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 friend1 person did this
Rated higher · 1 person rated this
Call the relative you only see at funerals
Nobody fell out. It lapsed on its own, and now the only time you are in a room together is when somebody has died.
5 minutesFreeA relative
Not rated yet
Apologize without the second half
“I'm sorry I snapped.” Full stop. No “but I was tired”, no “but you had just”.
5 minutesFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Leave the fledgling where it is
A feathered bird hopping on the ground is not abandoned. Picking it up is usually the thing that kills it.
5 minutesFreeAn animal
Not rated yet
Put the phone in another room for one evening
Not on the table face down. In a different room, where reaching it is a decision.
An afternoonFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Keep the cat in at dawn during nesting season
Fledglings leave the nest unable to fly properly for about a fortnight. Dawn is when both cats and birds are busiest.
5 minutesUnder $10An animal
Not rated yet
Refill the one thing you keep rebuying
Pick a single household item and stop buying new packaging for it. One item, permanently, beats a good fortnight.
Half an hourUnder $10The planet
Not rated yet
Do the chore they hate, and never mention it
Every household has one job somebody dreads. Doing it silently is worth more than doing it and collecting the credit.
Half an hourFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Ask now what they would want
Where they want to be, who decides, what they would refuse. Asked over tea it is a conversation. Asked in a corridor it is a crisis.
Half an hourFreeA relative
Not rated yet
Let them tell you the story you have already heard
Do not say you know. Let them get to the end of it the way they like telling it.
5 minutesFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Find out what your council actually recycles
Ten minutes on their website. Most people are wrong about at least three things, in both directions.
5 minutesFreeThe planet
Not rated yet
Take one recurring job off them permanently
Not help this once. The renewals, the bin day, the school forms — yours now, and off their list for good.
Half an hourFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Mend it once before you replace it
One repair attempt, on one thing, before it goes. Most failures are a seam, a fuse or a seal.
Half an hourUnder $10The planet
Not rated yet
Give it away while it still works
Not when you have finished with it and it is nearly dead. Now, while somebody would actually want it.
Half an hourFreeThe planet
Not rated yet
Turn up when there is no occasion
Birthdays and Christmas are obligations. A Tuesday is a choice, and everybody can tell the difference.
An afternoonFreeA relative
Not rated yet
Plant the tree you will not sit under
Whatever you plant now shades somebody who has not been born yet. That is the whole appeal.
An afternoonUnder $10The planet
Not rated yet
Learn to make the food they miss
The thing from their childhood, or the country they left. Getting it slightly wrong still counts.
An afternoonUnder $10Someone you live with
Not rated yet
Deal with the thing they keep meaning to deal with
The cupboard door, the unopened letter, the tap. It has been on their list for two years and it is forty minutes of yours.
An afternoonUnder $10A relative
Not rated yet
Write down how their house actually works
Which tap drips, where the stopcock is, who fixes the boiler. One page, on the fridge, for whoever needs it next.
Half an hourFreeA relative
Not rated yet
Put water out in a heatwave
A shallow dish at ground level, refilled daily. In a dry week it is the difference between a bird surviving the afternoon and not.
5 minutesFreeAn animal
Not rated yet
Ask about the thing they mentioned last week
The difficult meeting, the scan, the argument with their sister. They probably assume you forgot, because most people do.
5 minutesFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Let one corner of it go wild
Stop mowing a square yard. Leave the log where it fell. Neatness is the expensive part, for everything that is not you.
5 minutesFreeAn animal
Not rated yet
Say the specific thing you noticed today
Not that you appreciate them. The actual thing, from today, that you would not have noticed about anybody else.
5 minutesFreeSomeone you live with
Not rated yet
Read the form out loud for someone
Around one in six adults reads below the level most official forms are written at.
Half an hourFreeA neighbor1 person did this
Not rated yet
Keep sending the birthday card after the divorce
Children lose half their extended family in a separation, usually without anyone deciding that should happen.
5 minutesUnder $10A friend1 person did this
Not rated yet
Read the book your teenager is reading
It gives you a subject that is not school, not their friends and not anything they have to defend.
OngoingUnder $10A friend
Not rated yet