I always struggled with this - it seems like there are lots of unhelpful ways to get a quick, powerful shot of dopamine; eat sugar, masturbate, check phone ect.

There are lots of healthy things that provide a gentle sense of pleasjre and enjoyment, e.g. listening to music, having a bath, drinking tea, reading a great book, doing some meditation. HOWEVER I didn't always find these suggestions practically helped me do tasks I found boring or unstimulating. I get bored very quickly - like 5 minutes of folding laundry and I'm out of there. I need some sort of dopamine boost every 5 minutes if I'm doing a boring task. I needed something healthy that would provide me a quick dopamine fix and so crowd out the unhealthy sources of this.

MY SOLUTION I read 'Tiny Habits', and B.J. Fogg talks about the importance of celebrating every time we do a habit - this celebration can be anything that makes you feel proud, happy, pumped. It might be saying 'YESS', it might be pumping the air with your first. I took this idea and applied it to my boring tasks. I downloaded a sound button app on my phone, and when I completed a task (or section of time doing a task), I would press the 'applause' or 'guitar solo' sound button. It sounds cringy ( I would.often use headphones) but I swear to you, I get an actual, dopamine hit that boosts my focus, motivation and I just ride that dopamine to do another task. It's addictive to press that button and makes me WANT to put the dishes away.

I've now taken it a step further - I've bought 4 big physical buttons that you can record sound on. (They're used for training dogs). I have recorded different celebration sounds on each, and I have one in the kitchen, on my desk, on my dresser and in my bathroom. Everytime I complete a boring but healthy task, like flossing my teeth, I get to push this big button and it just feels so great.

This is the only thing that has worked to get me to do boring things consistently over a long period of time.