There’s a stroke order but the rules are pretty easy to learn. Outside of calligraphy, nobody will likely care if you get the order wrong. There’s also shorthand ways to write kanji called ryakuji.

Yeah, kanji can have lots of readings. There are some rules around when you use an on’yumi vs kun’yomi. A kanji paired with a hiragana is always a kun’yomi reading, but if there’s no kana you just have to know which reading to use. You can only pick that up through context and exposure. Of course any one kanji can have multiple on’yomi and kun’yomi readings. (And then there’s the concept of rendaku which can modify pronunciation based on neighboring syllables.) There’s nothing easy about it, but it is what it is. The you’re serious about learning Japanese it’s something you just have to get used to.

But nevertheless, kanji has many positives. It can make it much faster to read things because they can wrap complex things into a single character. If you have an unfamiliar character, understanding its components can often times provide a hint as to its meaning.

Think of it kind of like reading a conversation entirely in emoji. You may not get the whole meaning, but you can generally pick up the gist. And with far fewer words than it would take to write it out in full.