In addition to your portfolio construction choices, there are many other angles to managing your tax liability such as smart use of retirement plans and charitable giving. Since your question is focused on the investments, I will restrict my comments to just a couple of the investment issues.
The first thing to consider is the type of holdings in your taxable accounts – not IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, Roth accounts or similar. The taxes on retirement accounts like those I just listed are based on contributions to and distributions from the accounts, not what types of investments are bought or sold within the accounts.
Here is a simple example of how the type of holding matters. Say you are choosing between a U.S. Treasury bond paying 2.5 percent in interest or a very high-grade municipal bond paying 2 percent with the same maturity dates and selling at the same price. Your net return is based on your tax bracket.
If your bracket is less than 20 percent, the 2.5 percent taxable interest from the Treasury will net more after taxes than the 2 percent the muni will pay. For taxpayers in the 37 percent bracket, a taxable bond would have to pay 3.17 percent to equal the 2 percent interest on the tax-free bond. If your tax bracket is higher, the muni will net more.
A second important thing to consider is the type of vehicle you use to own the holdings.  Mutual funds are great for diversification but many funds tend to produce more capital gain distributions or income subject to high tax rates than is necessary.
The common causes of the extra taxes are funds that trade too actively, borrow to gain leverage, hedge with options or futures contracts, make large bets on just a few securities or are free to add anything at any time. You may be able to reduce the distributions by using more tax conscious funds.
Ignoring taxation can be costly but so can obsessing. You should not make all your investment choices based on taxes. The lure of lower taxes can blind you from a proper analysis of what would make sense for you. That’s how many people make mistakes like buying deferred annuities to lower today’s tax bill only to pay a lot more later, buying rental properties without realizing the work involved or understanding all the financial considerations like recapture of depreciation, or buying into an “exclusive opportunity” only to find out the whole operation is a Ponzi scheme or other sham.
A better approach is to seek sensible management of taxes in the context of your unique financial plans.