Try these:

1. Hold the door for someone, even if they are 15 seconds from getting to the door. The awkward eye contact and shy smiles will put you both in a good mood.
2. Let someone go ahead of you in traffic. People merging onto a crowded highway tend to think they have the right of way. They don’t, but why not be nice and let them go. Traffic is stressful enough.
3. Thank people. Always, thank people. I find it rude if you hold the door or elevator for someone and they do not thank me. The phrase is two words, but it weighs more than the 8 letters that make it up.
4. Buy your romantic partner flowers on the way home from work. Or chocolate. Or a DVD. Or a book they’ve been eyeing.
5. Compliment someone. Guys: You’d be surprised how far a small compliment goes to improve the mood of the women around you. Try “I like how you did your hair today” or “Your eyes look very blue today.”
6. Start a conversation while waiting in line (queue as they say in Europe).
7. Pick up a piece of trash rolling along the sidewalk.
8. Let the mother behind you with three fidgety kids go ahead of you in the grocery line. You can wait another 5 minutes and her being 5 minutes closer to wrangling her kids into the car would mean the world.
9. Randomly buy your friends something little. My friend bought me a CD a couple years ago and gave it to me straight from the Amazon package while we were checking our mail together. The CD was awesome and the gesture makes me crack a smile to this day.

Imagine the power to improve the world if everyone did one of these each day.

What would you add to this list?

Update: Unit Interactive released a site where people post something that made their day. I’m surprised how many of those things are little things that would take less than five minutes to do. Five minutes for 24 hours of happiness. Sounds like good ROI to me.