Both @south_korea_ln and @gnilma have given excellent responses. To add on, I like to use the pin yin (phonetic representation) of the character. Let’s say 自 (zi). I dive straight to the zi portion of the dictionary. Then, because Mandarin has four tones, I will then search for this word 自 via its tone (zì). It will take me about a minute to find a word that I am more or less acquainted with.

In regard to obscure words whose readings I don’t know, I used to scan them with an app. Then, I extracted the unfamiliar vocabulary and pasted them onto the search bar for Google to figure out the phonics. Only then can I use the phonetic reading to get the meaning of the unfamiliar word. It’s quite troublesome - and I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I have stopped learning new words. I blame it on parenting haha