That last paragraph is a key thing, and one I will keep reminding myself of.

One thing I've been noticing is that things where I can see some amount of "this time has passed, I have done a thing" helps in a specific way, where some of my long-term things don't.

I picked up knitting, during a health crisis in slow motion a decade ago, where I didn't leave the house more than once a week for at least half a year: knitting meant I could look at what I'd done, and go "Oh, there is more knitting here now. I guess I did do a thing and time passed." Bigger and especially sort of amorphous projects (reading a lot, writing, really long TV series) don't ping the same thing in me, even though they can be good in other ways.

During quarantine, I've been trying to do the ongoing things that feel good to me, but also making sure I mix in some where I see a meaningful pretty obvious change after a few hours. (cleaning the kitchen, knitting, watching a short series of YouTube videos I've been meaning to get around to for a while and checking them off my list of such things...)

I'm definitely using my inclinations about which things in both categories I pick, though!