You get a fixed amount of energy each day. Spend it like cash, not like it’s on someone else’s card.

Attention and effort run out on a schedule, and most people plan a day as though they will not. By late afternoon the supply is gone, and whatever mattered most has been given the leftovers. Treating it as finite changes the order you do things in rather than the total.

Put the thing you care about most into the part of the day when you are actually sharp, instead of promising it the evening. Let the low-value tasks have the tired hours. Ask what you spent the best part of today on, and whether you would repeat that tomorrow.