I mean at first I just vegged out for a long time. Let my nervous system recover a bit.

Moved into doing cozy games and hobbies with no limit or schedule on the time. Just played as much as I wanted to.

I do voluntary work from anywhere I have a laptop (often my work lunch breaks)

Its a quick way to feel like doing amazing things in a small way, for a daily 'happy' point.

Basically I help map places that are not mapped online to help with disaster recovery/preparedness from natural disasters and conflict.
The link explains better than me

missingmaps.org/

Last year, I felt pretty overwhelmed and unsatisfied with university in general and started using blogging not only as a creative outlet, but also as a means of getting me to do stuff.

I set myself the goal of writing 4000 words a month, which got my brain to focus on making actual progress on projects so I could write a post about them.
Be that cooking, arts and craft, tech, nature or creative writing (i.e. a short story).
It also allowed me to create a collection of posts I can refer back to when I revisit a specific project or technique.

I'm currently doing a fulltime internship (which, in regards to an earlier post of yours, took me about 18 applications spread over a year to get) and I feel more exhausted and less energetic to do stuff after work now.
But I still decided to go for 1000words / 1 blog post a month, just so I keep creating and distract myself in a positive way.
Even if it is just for myself.

a bit of colouring books. I like looking at bright colours and I can just choose. Very little brain action or mental energy required.

How do I make myself do it? I don't, which is why I don't do it often.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but for my interpretation of the question I try to keep up streaks for things just for me.

So I'll come up with something that I want to do, or think about a value I hold, or something that's missing in my life. Then I try to do something for it repeatedly.

For example, I go running every 3 days. And I hate running. It's awful. But it regulates my heart in the long term. I've done a 30 min run but I've also done a 5 min run. The thing that ticks off the habit is to "do a run" and then not judge myself if it's only a short one. The app I use even has a 1 min run.

Similarly, having given up Duolingo, I still wanted to learn a language. Instead of the owl forcing me into an Italian lesson every day, I just have to "study a language" and that could be spending some time on a language app, or reading a book in another language or just listening to a single song. In whatever language I'm interested in that day.

I guess what this all boils down to is that I've found a way to do something that's just for me and isn't related to work or other people. I'm not striving for a particular goal. I learned how to give myself enough flexibility so that I was likely to achieve the goal even on rough days. Then when I look back on the app I can see I did something for myself 12 times in one month, for example. By making it into a "streak" I want to keep, it propels me to do it, even if it's only one tiny thing.

the things at home, I either watch TV[1] or listen to music while doing it.

[1] series or youtubers I follow.

Oh, I missed the question entirely.

I force myself to go hiking or biking. Most of the time I lose. I don't have (stable) groups to do it with, and alone is not so funny anymore. I have almost no social net here :(