Performance optimization is a pretty huge topic, so it's very difficult to know exactly what's causing the problems on your particular page. In general, the biggest problem tends to be the browser's graphics rendering, so make sure you're affecting the smallest number of pixels possible, that the bounding box for those changes is as small as possible, and that you're not animating things that could affect document flow (like top/left, margin, etc.)
If you still need some help, feel free to post a link or a reduced test case so we can see what's going on.
Happy tweening!