You can harness your brain's natural dopamine-seeking tendencies to reach your goals across many areas of life.

We’ve all been there. An important email needs a response, but you just can’t bring yourself to type it out. Instead, your mind wants to focus on anything else ― scrolling TikTok, organising your sock drawer, dreaming up an itinerary for a hypothetical trip to Japan you have no immediate plans to take.

This isn’t a sign of inherent laziness but rather your brain’s natural tendency to seek out dopamine, the feel-good chemical that gets released when you do something pleasurable. That’s why sipping on a sweet latte or looking at beautiful photos of cherry blossoms on Instagram feel a lot better than responding to that dense work email.

But the good news is you can harness that dopamine reward system to complete the tasks your brain would prefer to avoid. There’s a nifty little trick called “dopamine anchoring”.

What is “dopamine anchoring”?

“Dopamine anchoring is the idea of pairing a non-preferred task with something you enjoy, hopefully making the boring or annoying task less aversive and maybe even something you seek out because the positive activity is more salient,” therapist Caitlyn Oscarson told HuffPost.

She gave the example of folding laundry while watching TV or listening to a podcast.

“I don’t at all like folding laundry, but when paired with watching a show or having some quiet time with my earbuds, it’s a task that I look forward to and feel motivated to complete,” Oscarson said.

If you have ADHD or otherwise struggle with procrastination, dopamine anchoring can help you tackle the tasks you avoid.

“It reminds me of the old song from Mary Poppins, ‘Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in the most delightful way,’” said time management coach Anna Dearmon Kornick. “The boring or uncomfortable task is the medicine, and the spoonful of sugar is pairing that task with something you actually enjoy.”

Basically, this rewards system makes work feels less like work.

“The term draws on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is linked to pleasure, anticipation and motivation,” said Lauren Mastroni, a career expert at CV Genius. “The ‘anchoring’ part refers to creating a consistent link between that positive emotional payoff and the task you’ve associated with it.”

The concept is somewhat similar to Pavlovian conditioning, as your mind comes to associate certain activities with positive rewards.

“It’s not magic ― it’s just working with how we’re wired,” said Ryan Zhang, a workplace productivity expert and CEO of Notta.ai. “Over time, you stop dreading these tasks because your brain knows something good is coming.”

What are the benefits of dopamine anchoring?

“Dopamine anchoring can be a powerful tool in a world full of distractions and dwindling attention spans,” Mastroni said, noting that it boosts motivation by helping people overcome the mental hurdle of starting a task they tend to avoid.

Thus, dopamine anchoring also facilitates........

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