Well not selecting archives in your on-demand scan will do it better than using exclusions.
Archive (zip, etc.) files are by there nature inert, you need to unpack them and then run any executable for them to be a threat. Long before that happens the Standard Shield should have scanned the contents and before an executable is run that is scanned. I also don't use a Thorough sensitivity rather the Standard scan, so with this my scan takes a little over 8 minutes but is scanning only 6.8GB of qualifying data. This duration will obviously depend on the data you have on your HDD.
I have only ever done a through scan with archives once shortly after installation just to ensure a clean start state, but with XP for example avast will do a boot-time scan after installation if you select it, this I believe will be quicker and reasonably effective. Like everything in life things are a compromise.