“The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not,” say Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal. Their message: To be a consistently high performer, you have to manage your energy, not your time.

If you typically manage your time—say, by creating to-do lists, prioritizing tasks, and scheduling dedicated time for each of those activities—you know how easy it is to get derailed in the course of an ordinary business day. A single email or conversation can break your focus or completely rearrange your priorities.

By managing your energy, you can bring your best performance to whatever activity that comes up, whether it’s being 100% present in conversations, contributing creative ideas in a meeting, or fully focusing on a critical task. You can achieve results that are far superior to the incremental gains you might get from time management techniques.

But how, exactly, do you manage your energy? Start with these five tips.

Read my article for The Daily Muse.