Tag: Giving

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The Good Deed Directory – 40 ways we can help each other and ourselves

What do you think of when you hear the word volunteering? Going abroad to build a school in a deprived area? Helping out in a charity shop? These are important volunteering roles, but there are so many volunteering options out there, in numerous different fields, that take up different amounts of time. In the UK, it’s National Volunteering Week which aims to promote the diversity of volunteering. To coincide with this celebration of volunteering, this week’s blog post focuses on the multiple different ways we can help each other and improve our wellbeing, by launching the Good Deed Directory.

As we’ve learnt in previous blog posts, volunteering our time and being kind to others can aid our wellbeing in multiple ways. For example, we:

As this blog is called 15 minute wellbeing, you may be thinking that there’s only so much you can do in a short space of time. There’s actually loads of things you can do to help others and improve your wellbeing in the process.

These are all listed in the Good Deed Directory below, categorised by the time it takes to do them – a few seconds; one to five minutes; and 15 minutes. No matter how much time you have, you can help someone else and boost your wellbeing in the process.

Small acts of kindness can make a big difference to people’s lives (as well as our own). I hope this directory inspires and encourages you to do a good deed for someone else.

Good Deeds that take only seconds to do

  • Hold the door open for the person behind you, even if it means waiting a few seconds for them
  • Let someone go in front of you in a queue
  • Give way to another driver when the road is too narrow for two cars to pass
  • If there’s time left on your car parking ticket, offer it to someone entering the car park instead of throwing it away
  • Re-tweet, comment on, or share a friend’s post to help them grow their social media following. Even a simple ‘like’ can make a difference
  • If you’re not scared of creepy crawlies, safely and humanely remove a spider or bee (or other insect) off someone else
  • Offer someone your seat on the bus or train, whether they are pregnant, disabled, elderly or just look tired
  • Smile at everyone you pass
  • Once you’ve read a book, donate it to your local book sharing scheme. A list of train and tube stations where this operates can be found here. You can then enjoy a book that someone else has donated. You could even follow in the footsteps of actress Emma Watson and place books with handwritten notes in your local area
  • Give someone a compliment
  • Share an inspirational quote. If you found it inspiring, chances are someone else will too
  • Sign for a neighbour’s parcel when they are out
  • Tell someone if they have something in their teeth or on their face
  • If a loved one is out, record or download their favourite programme for them

Good Deeds you can do in one to five minutes

  • Help someone with a buggy on the stairs or getting on/off public transport
  • If a friend or colleague is going on holiday to a place you’ve been, give them some tips on things to do, see or places to eat
  • If someone is struggling with their shopping, help them carry it to their car
  • Do the washing up – or stack the dishwasher – after dinner
  • If a friend is looking for a job and you’ve got connections to a suitable company, why not recommend them?
  • Write a review of a good service you’ve received. New and small businesses will really appreciate any positive feedback you can provide
  • Help someone cross the road or off public transport
  • Show your appreciation for someone else by thanking them and explaining why you appreciate them
  • Ask a loved one about their day. Sharing experiences can help us connect and you may even learn something new, which can also help us feel good about ourselves
  • Help someone reach their destination in the quickest possible way by putting their route into a journey planner
  • Make a cup of tea or coffee for someone else
  • Praise a colleague. If someone has done a good job, let them (and others at work) know about it!
  • Sign a petition to help change something you care about. Visit change.org to find a petition or start your own

Good Deeds that can be done in 15 minutes (or longer if you wish)

  • Call someone you haven’t spoken to for a while. If you have an elderly relative why not pick up the phone to them?
  • Pick up litter in your local area. Improving our local environment can help increase our wellbeing. Although I’m not suggesting we all run 300km along the river Thames, take a look at this ‘plogging’ group (picking up rubbish while jogging) who collected 44 bags of landfill waste
  • Help a friend with a problem. This could be a sibling struggling with their homework
  • Make a small gift. This could be a little drawing or a tasty little snack. Knowing that you put your thought and time into it will mean a lot to the recipient
  • Help tidy a room in a friend’s house or tidy part of your workplace. Tidy your bedroom so your parents don’t nag you! After all, decluttering a room can also result in a decluttered mind
  • Offer to check something over for someone. This could be a speech they’ve written for a wedding or an email they are not confident sending.
  • If you’re handy, why not fix something? Perhaps change a light bulb or frame a picture.
  • Organise part of a trip. If you’re going away somewhere soon, why not find a great restaurant to eat at or an activity you and your travel companion(s) can do?
  • If you’re great at doing hair, nails or make up, why not offer to do one of these for a friend before a night out?
  • Donate any unwanted clothes, jewellery or homeware to charity so others can benefit from it. As Marie Kondo says, pass the joy onto someone else
  • If you are able to, donate blood. Find your local blood donation session here
  • Attend a local charity fete or fundraising event. Often, showing your support by just being there is enough
  • Go to the shops or complete a chore for someone who is unwell

If you have any ideas about other activities we can do by giving 15 minutes of our time, please get in touch so they can be shared with everyone. It would be great to keep building the Good Deed Directory so any contributions would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you’ve benefitted from a good deed recently (either giving or receiving), please do share your story so others can be inspired to do the same.

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram in between weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.

You can make someone’s day in 15 minutes

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Sir Winston Churchill

A national survey found that 76% of the UK population feel society was more selfish than 10 years ago and 67% believe that people were less likely to be kind to strangers. Isn’t that sad?

There are numerous examples of people coming together to help each other such as Americans offering refuge to those in New Orleans after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and residents of Clapham in London cleaning up their local streets following the riots in 2011. However, we shouldn’t wait for a natural disaster or social uprising to happen in order to help each other.

Small acts of kindness can make a huge difference to someone else’s – and our own – lives. Today’s activity focuses on giving 15 minutes of our time, but often doing something to help or be kind to others can take far less time than that. Something small such as:

  • Giving way to a fellow driver;
  • Helping someone carry a buggy down the stairs;
  • Holding the door open for someone;

Can all make a small but positive impact on another person’s day. As we covered in the first giving blog, a secondary benefit of giving is that helping others also helps us and can improve our wellbeing.

Give just 15 minutes to improve your wellbeing

Today’s activity asks you to give 15 minutes of your time to someone or something else. The worksheet provides you with some ideas on how you can give your time, be it helping someone else or your local community. These are just suggestions so if you’d like to give 15 minutes of your time doing something else to help others, then do. There is also space on the worksheet to reflect on how it went and how you felt afterwards.

Click the link below to download the worksheet. You can fill it in using the ‘fill and sign’ tool or alternatively print it off and fill it in by hand.

give-15-minutes-of-your-timeDownload

If you have any ideas about other activities we can do by giving 15 minutes of our time, please get in touch so they can be shared with everyone. I am currently creating a ‘Good Deed Directory’ so any contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Check back here (and @15minwellbeing on Instagram and twitter) tomorrow for the next wellbeing activity as part of Mental Health Awareness Week!

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Clearing out your closet can clear your mind

Sometimes it feels like we’re surrounded by stuff, with nowhere to put anything. How much of this stuff do we actually need? Have we used or worn it all in the last year? If the answer to these questions is ‘not all of it’ then all these things may be cluttering your life unnecessarily.

Clutter can contribute to feelings of stress and not being able to achieve our goals. Mess around the house can make us feel stressed as we may perceive it as another task that we haven’t been able to complete. This adds to the feeling that there isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish our goals, which can make us feel even more stressed. In this third post during National Stress Awareness Month, we will be exploring the benefits of tidying up, getting rid of things we don’t really need and donating them to charity.

You may have heard of the ‘KonMari’ method popularised by the TV show ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’. This method encourages us to get rid of items which no longer ‘spark joy’ in us. This is similar to the quote by William Morris: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Focusing on the items that make us happy and removing those that are no longer of use to us can result in a transformation of not only our homes, but also our emotional wellbeing.

Is Marie Kondo onto something? She could well be. Living in a messy, cluttered house can have a negative impact on our wellbeing. If we feel like we live in a cluttered home, we are more likely to feel stressed, as shown by increased levels of cortisol (the stress hormone).

Why we are reluctant to declutter our homes

Although clutter and mess can cause frustration and have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing, many of us do nothing about it. Why is that? Tidying up and throwing things away is an unpleasant, often time-consuming activity for many of us to do, so we avoid it and spend that time procrastinating instead. For those of us who avoid throwing things away, or even hoard objects, we may keep hold of things because we believe that:

  • We just need more time to sort things out
  • We don’t have too much stuff, we just need more storage space
  • We need to keep them for the future, ‘just in case’
  • If we throw things away, we may harm the environment

If you are concerned that you may have a problem with hoarding, the Clutter Image Rating may be useful. Also, speak to your GP or a mental health practitioner for advice and support.

We can also become overly attached to our personal items, which makes it hard to get rid of them, resulting in a build-up of objects in our homes and lives. We then add to this ever increasing amount of objects because we believe we actually need the things we want, which is rarely the case. Do we want three different types of black ankle boots? Yes. Do we need three different types of black ankle boots? Almost definitely not.

How getting rid of clutter can improve our wellbeing

In comparison, if we feel like we live in a home that is tidy and in order, we feel less stressed. When decluttering we use our problem solving skills, giving us a sense of mastery and control, which helps us feel better about ourselves and increases our belief in our ability to achieve our goals.

One of the positives of tidying up is that we can see the difference we have made straight away. When our things are out of place, this can cause us to feel anxious. Putting things in order can relieve anxiety relatively quickly. Additionally, decluttering can involve three of the key wellbeing themes we’ve covered in 15 minute wellbeing:

  • Physical health – tidying is a type of exercise, which can improve our mental and physical health
  • Mindfulness – concentrating on just decluttering a space can keep us in the here and now, which in itself can help reduce stress
  • Giving – giving our unwanted items to charity can not only pass on joy to others, but also increase our self-worth

This week’s activity is a seemingly simple one – declutter a space in your home. It may sound daunting –and it’s ok to feel that way – but in line with all the other activities, you only need to spend 15 minutes tidying a space. Pick a small, manageable space such as a bedside drawer or the pile of bits and bobs on the stairs. Take a picture of how it looks before decluttering, then take another when you have finished.This will help you see what a difference just 15 minutes of tidying up can make.

Once you’ve finished tidying, bag up those items you don’t need and donate them to your local charity shop. Giving to others can further enhance our wellbeing by giving us asense of self-worth and purpose.

Click the link below to download the worksheet. You can fill it in using the ‘fill and sign’ tool or alternatively print it off and fill it in by hand.

clearing-out-your-closet-can-clear-your-mindDownload

If tidying up had a positive impact on your stress levels or wellbeing, please do get in touch and share your story.

I share wellbeing-related research, news and stories on twitter and Instagram inbetween weekly blog posts so do follow @15minwellbeing on both platforms to keep up to date.