Saying ‘thank you’ is an essential pillar of good manners, which (along with saying ‘please’) is endlessly reiterated to us throughout our childhood. It is a fundamental act of recognition and acknowledgement, which shows our appreciation for any act of civility or generosity – from holding a door open to hosting a dinner party – and has a powerful, positive impact on all social interactions.

It is surprising, therefore, that this simple gesture of gratitude is so often overlooked, both in our social and professional lives. Given its positive benefits, it is hard to understand why saying thank you is often deprioritised. The simplest explanation for this is heedlessness and distraction. We rush through our daily lives at full pelt, enslaved by the demands for attention that emanate from our digital devices, stressed and distracted, and we overlook the real-life scenarios that should be acknowledged. A classic example of this syndrome is the harassed customer in a coffee shop who orders a drink while making a phone call, grabs it from the barista and makes a swift exit without a word of thanks.

The more we allow these small interactions to go unmarked by gratitude, the more likely we are to forget out social obligations on occasions when thanks are expected – social media is rife with complaints and gripes from people who never receive thanks or acknowledgement for presents or hospitality, a fundamental social faux pas.

This is a great shame, as saying thank you improves your relationships, building trust with the people around you. It demonstrates that you are aware of acts of politeness, generosity, support or friendship and appreciative of them. It is also true that saying thank you is an investment in the future: by showing your appreciation you are demonstrating that you are a person who is worthy of generosity and kindness, and inevitably more will come your way.

We’ve looked at ways of bringing more gratitude into your life:

Start Young

If you instil habits of gratitude in your children, you will be doing them a lifetime service. This encompasses simple ps and qs (“say please”, “say thank you”), but it also involves the much more arduous business of getting children to write thank-you notes for treats and presents. This will be much more effective if you can persuade your child by using empathy (“Wasn’t it nice of Grandma to remember how much you like painting?”), rather than by simply imposing your authority (“You can’t go out to play until you’ve written your thank-you letters”). You will inevitably encounter resistance to this whole business, especially amongst young children who find writing hard work, but it is worth sticking at it, because it will eventually become an engrained habit that your children will take into adulthood, where it will put them at a social advantage.

Embrace Everyday Gratitude

Monitor all your everyday transactions ­– from driving encounters, bus journeys and coffee shops to shopping, ordering food, buying drink. It is obviously vital that you always thank anyone who performs a service for you (in a shop, bar, ticket office and so on), and failing to do so is undoubtedly rude, because it is demeaning to the person who is serving you. Being busy or distracted is never an adequate excuse for this kind of disregard.

But also question whether you even notice when someone does something polite or helpful for you, when they are under no obligation to do so; this could range from giving way in a car to let you pass on a crowded street, to holding a door open for you or ushering you ahead of them in a queue. Once you start to look out for these small gestures you will see that they happen very frequently, and you will also find that a smile and a nod, wave or word of gratitude will bring both gratification to you and to the other person. Never overlook these small moments of engagement – they will school you in the art of gratitude and enhance your awareness of other people.

Acknowledge Gifts and Hospitality

Traditionally, there was a whole apparatus of formal thanks for gifts and hospitality. Letters were dispatched in short order, and they followed a set pattern: opening with thanks; remarks on the pleasures of the occasion/appositeness of the gift; more general remarks; reiterated thanks.

But as letters have become increasingly rare and we’ve become more reliant on digital communications, these conventional missives have begun to be replaced by texts, emails and messages. While a letter or thank-you card always packs a more powerful punch (it speaks of time, consideration and effort) a digital message of thanks still performs the essential function of grateful acknowledgment.

More troublingly, we now seem to be entering an era when gratitude ghosting is increasingly in evidence. This is when gifts are received, and hospitality is enjoyed without a word of thanks – the act of generosity is simply met with a resounding silence. If you must admit that you have tendencies in this direction, just try and exercise your empathy. Imagine how you would feel if you had invested time, money and thought in choosing, wrapping and sending a present, and your efforts were met with nothing. Or envisage a situation where you had invited friends for dinner, shopped, cleaned, cooked a delicious meal, plied them with drink and conversation, only to be met with silence in the days after the event. It is not a great imaginative leap to realise that you would be left feeling hurt, overlooked and offended.

These negative feelings can act like a slow poison, infecting the giver with a resolve not to lay themselves open to this casual disregard. Is it surprising that serial non-thankers eventually find themselves struck off gift lifts or left without invitations?

Acknowledge Support and Kindness

Saying thank you isn’t just about everyday acts of kindness, generosity or hosting. Generosity comes in many guises, from giving someone a lift, helping with their shopping or gardening to helping them move house, looking after their children, or supporting them through a major illness or bereavement.

It often seems easier to thank people for small services, of the help with shopping or gardening variety, than saying thank you for major, life-changing acts of support or generosity. But these big gestures must also be acknowledged, and if you find it difficult to articulate the extent of your gratitude in person, a letter can be a very useful way of expressing more complex emotions.

Thank Colleagues

Gratitude plays a major role in the workplace, and we all know that colleagues who take our assistance for granted, who never thank us for our time and effort, can easily undermine the working environment and make us feel resentful.

If you regularly thank your colleagues for their assistance and support, you will be contributing to a positive workplace culture, where everyone feels more engaged. You will also be consolidating team loyalty and productivity.

In a work context, a public thank you (whether it is on a workplace message app, an email thread, or in person in a meeting) is particularly valuable. Everyone is striving for recognition in the workplace, so they will be particularly gratified by thanks that are aired in a wider forum, where their efforts are acknowledged and noted by other colleagues, team leaders and management.

The person who is giving thanks will also gain kudos from the transaction. They will be seen as generous, honest, supportive and loyal. On the other hand, people who take sole credit for work, without acknowledging crucial advice and assistance, will be seen as untrustworthy and unscrupulous ladder-climbers and regarded with suspicion.