Pre-tenure strategies to spend less time on bureaucracy, and more on research
Learn to say "NO" (especially to people that do not decide about your tenure)

It is discussed in length here and here but these are my favourite points:


Short and simple answers like "Thanks for coming to me but I’m afraid
it’s not convenient/possible right now" or "I’m sorry but I can’t help with this (at the moment)". Don't start to write endless time-eating apologies.
Avoid feeling guilty about saying "no".
Interrupt the "yes"-cycle using phrases like "I'll get back to you" -
you might not hear from them again if it was not that important after all (which is the case for very many things). My ex-boss did this on a master level: we would only answer requests from people lower in the food chain if the requests were already reminders - the original request was ignored straight away. (I personally think that this is a bit over the top but it worked for him (post-tenure)).