Tips for surviving the drudgery of transcription?

I'm in the midst of conducting fairly long interviews. An hour, two hours, sometimes three. Some are on zoom, others are in person with a handheld recorder. I know otter.ai is my friend, but it still requires checking everything (and—thus far—I've only shelled out for the tier with 90-minute limits on the transcriptions). Any tips for powering through the drudgery of transcribing interviews? I can't listen to music since that would interfere with the listening process.

I know there's a universe in which I could go in and transcribe just the parts I know I want to quote word for word. But I won't know for some time what those will be. And for purposes of having redundant backups, I do still prefer to have a pretty solid full transcript in my files. I back up the audio files, so maybe I'm letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here and should find ways to work smarter, not harder. And yet, this perfectionist side of me wants to have a fairly polished transcript, lest anything should ever happen to the various backups of the audio (plus audio files take up so much space—though I put them on a large external drive). I also think future me will find it easier to skim through a written transcript for the best parts versus an audio file. So right now, I'm polishing the transcripts (other than the pleasantries) and bolding and highlighting important points or potential quotations while the interviews are still fresh.

Can anyone relate? I know every job has its dull aspects, so maybe that's just what this is. But I'd love to hear any tips and tricks from others. Any rituals to get yourself amped and focused for a transcribing session? Pomodoro technique? Rewards when you finish a transcription? Perhaps I just need a pep talk as my eyes slowly glaze over this sleepy afternoon.