Find a direction
What are you trying to do?
A bearing on its own is rarely the goal. Each of these 8 guides gives the answer first, then the method, then the accuracy you should expect, because a direction you cannot put a tolerance on is not an answer.
The basic one
Which way is north?
If you are on a phone, press Start compass and turn until the bearing reads 000. If you are not, and the sun is up, stand with the sun on your right in the morning and you are facing roughly north.
4 steps
No instrument
Without a compass
Put a stick upright in the ground, mark the tip of its shadow, wait fifteen minutes and mark it again. The line from the first mark to the second points roughly east.
4 steps
Fixed installation
Aim a solar panel
In the northern hemisphere, face a fixed array due true south, 180 degrees. In the southern hemisphere, due true north, 000. Tilt it at roughly your latitude.
4 steps
Line of sight
Aim a satellite dish
Look up the azimuth, elevation and skew for your postcode and your satellite, set the azimuth as a true bearing, then fine-tune on signal strength.
4 steps
Great-circle bearing
Find the qibla
The qibla is the great-circle bearing from where you are standing to the Kaaba in Mecca, at 21.4225 degrees north, 39.8262 degrees east. It depends entirely on your location, so there is no single answer.
4 steps
Aspect
Which way a house faces
Stand with your back against the front wall of the house, facing out, and read the bearing. That is the aspect. Outdoors, several metres from the wall, or the steel in it will spoil the reading.
4 steps
Three norths
Take a bearing from a map
Line the compass edge from where you are to where you are going, rotate the housing until its grid lines match the map's north lines, read the bearing, then add your local declination to walk it.
4 steps
Sensor hygiene
Calibrate your phone
Hold the phone away from your body and trace a figure of eight in the air two or three times, rotating your wrist as you go. Do it away from metal and magnets.
4 steps
Or just read a bearing
The compass is on the front page
If you only need to know which way you are facing, you do not need a guide.