To cut the traffic on VfD, list on Cleanup for two weeks first if it isn't actually harmful (offensive or illegal, not tasteless or dictionary) to have it around for that time. And tell the most prominent creators it's been listed there for more work so they can do that work if they want to.
This gives time for the debates to start and maybe finish before things arrive at VfD. Also time for the people who are inclined to work on articles to do that before they use the more time-consuming VfD process. Would be nice not to see newbies getting educated instead of listed on VfD an hour afer starting work on a page as well.
Once those steps have halved the demand for VfD there won't be a need to cut the time things stay there.
Cleanup might need to switch to one page per day of the week but that's less painful there because there's no deadline.