Lately I've spent almost all of my free time writing. Most of it isn't very good, but that isn't the point - the point is that even if I only get a couple paragraphs down before I have to move on, I've got hours and hours of thoughts about the story and characters that can keep me from being anxious about stuff until the next time I get a chance to add more.

I think about these semi-throwaway characters when I'm trying to sleep and it knocks me out, I think about them when I'm doing something repetitive and it helps the time go. I've had conversations with relatives where I've said something like "I'm writing a story where _____" as a conversation topic, and it's a pretty good one to get people talking about stuff they like or things they're doing and not politics or family drama.

With these "strictly recreational" stories, I've also got absolutely zero need to worry about finishing them - I've written the first few pages of a dozen different stories, and just switch when I lose interest. No pressure about deleting the files or reusing ideas that I liked from before but in a different context. No pressure about it being good or the content being cringy since nobody else will see them. Just let the thoughts flow.

I also have a story I'm writing which is in a separate category of "I want to publish this someday", which I work on when my free time intersects with me feeling productive and I take a lot more seriously. It's fulfilling in a different way, and I think both the quality of the work I'm putting into it and the amount of time I'm spending on it has increased since writing became my go-to activity. Even though 95% of the writing I'm doing is silly and unrelated, I'm in a headspace where I'm more likely to work on it and less likely to mindlessly fire up Factorio or something.