The rare success I've enjoyed has come only by devoting patience and much more time than the process would take in a social setting. Specifically, it took four hours, and nothing better to do, and the result was mediocre at best.
The problem, unless a person has no social concerns with cutting one's hair and the motivation is strictly utilitarian of course, is the process is a bit like writing in cursive with the left hand (if right-handed, and vice versa).
If one has any social motivation whatsoever for getting a haircut, even for the sake as minimal as the sensitivities of a wife for example, then it's best to find a barber.
It's a cleansing ritual of renewal that's much more quickly done than undone, and it will always grow back, or almost always.
How you look in a buzz cut? (I shave my dome, there is very little to shave)
Vanity is your only obstacle
TT