Way back when I started really claying and began to worry about how to finish my work I sanded by hand and hated it. Since I was making small beads, mostly, this was time consuming and painful. Eventually I settled on mostly making beads that didn’t need sanding and using a tumbler for the ones that do. As a result, I do a very small amount of sanding by hand and I’m a happier clayer.
Until I reached that enlightened point, though, I went through all sorts of tricks to sand more easily including variations on this trick by Simply Renee Louise of adding sandpaper to small pads on my Dremel. I used my Dremel but the little electric toothbrushes and automatic stain removing scrubbers work well, too. The Dremel worked best for me, on the higher grits. On lower grits I tended to sand through pattern sections if I wasn’t paying enough attention. I never got the results I wanted with the other devices.