Looking things up quickly

This is so obvious it almost doesn't need to be said, and it's something lots of Japanese people do to, but for some reason it didn't occur to me immediately: If you want to look something up, but you can't copy and paste (because it's from a book, because it's in a graphic, etc.), see if you know any of the component kanji from other words. Type in the other words, delete what you don't need, and voila! Guessing pronunciations is also a good way to go. If it looks like five other kanji that can all be pronounced 'kou', chances are good it's pronounced 'kou' too. Sometimes scrolling through all of the possible kanji for 'kou' in your IME is faster than other lookup methods, and it's good practice.