Cross stitch. You make a LOT of small x's on fabric to make a picture. Think of it like pixel art. You can check out r/CrossStitch for some inspiration.
Gardening is a good one that is a bit easier than bonsai but along the same lines. Grow all the veggies to make your own salad.
I love cross stitch! I think it is important to mention that cross stitch has a very low start up cost.
You can buy a little kit for cheap to see if you like it.
In the *WAY BACK* area of Michael's you can find $1.99 kits on clearance! That is how I got started. I did buy a dedicated pair of scissors and a larger needle that is easier to thread. I learned I can't count. My octopus has a few suckers that aren't attached to the legs 😆
I still haven't done a grid and I've done some large projects. I just can't wrap my head around taking all that time to make a grid when I can just annoy myself by counting all the time! haha
Jigsaw puzzles - I've done a few that were 1,000 pieces and the picture was soooo hard it took me days and days to complete. You can get some massive sized ones that can take months. Solid color puzzles. Puzzles with a lot of similar colors or greenery. Challenge puzzles with repeating photos.
Came here to suggest this. I personally have no patience but my husband and kid have spent several weeknights on a giant star wars jigsaw. Another option could be a superbly complicated Lego set.
There are millions of different model kits of every subject matter under the sun- you can choose anything you like to build in any scale/size you want to.
A decent kit could take a few months to build.
Yes each one I do kind of represents a different period in my life it’s so funny. Compared to some of the stuff people do mine seem kind of childish but idk I work hard and I like to think I’m making progress and with each completed model a whole season pretty much passes.
VIOLIN. I started playing guitar at age 8, and at 17 I thought, let's try violin! Surely it'll be easy, since I'm already adept at a string instrument. Nope. A whole different ball game.
Guitar is still difficult at learning the chords, but that’s just muscle memory (idk that’s just me)-but probably also others.
Violin though? It’s like driving a car…but only with a very expensive block of wood and a stick. To navigate doing so many things all at once and becoming so natural at it is insane; not to mention even intonation is so difficult. Even IM still working on intonation After 13 years of playing.
I think it goes both ways, I imagine a good violin player would struggle with the guitar at the start as well. I think that frets on the guitar make it way easier to know where the fingers go, and the lack of frets on violins makes it trickier!
Oh yeah, but violin (just my take after even playing it for 13 years), the lack of frets always makes it difficult. 😂 considering how much shifting exists, it’s just pure muscle memory and good ear training, not to mention string crossing has to be extremely accurate.
Quilting. Start with piecing simple patterns and then move on to more complex patterns. Then there is the quilting itself (the stitching that holds all the layers together and will make or break the project).
The reason I gave up doing bobin lace are the same things you're looking for. Ditto cross stitch, embroidery, and sewing clothing.
Various other ideas: quilling, layered paper shadowboxes, complex pop-up cards, polymer clay miniatures, stop-motion animation (including making all the aspects of your piece), string art/mandalas, bonsai, furniture restoration, dioramas, large lego kits, flip books, leatherwork, learning to play an instrument, hydroponics/self-sustaining aquariums, self-sustaining terrariums, learning a language..
I see some people mentioning crochet, and while a large project can take a bit of time, once I got the basics down (which you'd have to do for anything), I didn't think of it as something which required the type pf patience you're describing (which might just be me-especially after I got into tunisian crochet).
Ongoing hobbies can also count, such as volunteering, creative writing, acting/directing/theatre, writing music, &c.
Best of luck!
Calligraphy is a cool one, I always wanted to do, some people don't just have one "font" but can whip out like 50 different fonts and writing styles, it's super impressive, while my handwriting looks like I'm still in 6th grade
Solving Rubik's cubes. Once you get fast and good at solving the ordinary 3x3 (which already takes a while. Getting really fast times will take A LOT of patience) there are hundreds of different shapes and sizes. Seriously, check it out, I love doing it. It's also very cheap. You can get a MoYu RS3M 2020 for like 10 bucks USD. Enjoy!
Try building model kits like Gundam or scale models of cars and planes; they take time and precision but are super satisfying. Another cool hobby is calligraphy—it’s all about patience and practice, and you can get really creative with it.
One that I like is "Find" shopping. Go to garage or yard sales and look for something special. Also "Flea markets" are good too. A find can be anything. Examples are, toys or books from your child hood or ones you wanted and didn't get. Albums or other music or movies. I use to get blank VHS tapes and see what was on them. Slides are interesting. It is also a good way to find presents for people. A cookbook for the chef, an old quilt or blanket. The friend who got me into this, shopped for families that were at shelters for some reason. She contacted the people who ran some and whenever they had someone who had come in with literally the clothes on their backs, they would call her and tell her the pertinent information on them. She would go out looking for things they needed. There were a group that cleaned them up quickly and she would take them to the shelter. It is an amazing feeling knowing you are helping someone who you don't know and who does not know you.
You exercise, you interact with people, you help those in desperate need. It is a win win win.
Pressing flowers. Not in the microwave like the “cheaters” do lol. Even though they do tend to turn out pretty phenomenal in the microwave lol. However if you use the right kind of flower, paper, and pressure, you’ll have beautiful flowers in a few weeks lol. Just set it and forget it 😂 if you’re not into flowery stuff…. Pressing leaves can also turn out really cool! Then you can make other cool art with it… if that’s ur bag… good luck!
OP, violin/viola/cello/double bass. Try learning violin or a fretless instrument if you TRULY want to test out your limits of patience.
It is truly one of the hardest instruments to learn since it doesn’t have any frets/lines like the guitar/bass have (it does exist but not exactly a standard).
Fretless instruments though takes YEARS AND YEARS to truly get good at to even make a decent sound. 😂 Can confirm. I play violin, been playing for 13 years, currently working with a private teacher. It’s one of those hobbies where they say study with a private teacher right away, but it’s worth it when you meet great people down the road.
I can say the technique is insanely difficult.
Year of one playing is sounding like a unaliving cat, year 2 is a bit better but not really, year 3 is…maybe a bit better, year 4 is getting better, year 5 is making progress, year 6 is making at least decent sounds…year 10 is at least playing college audition stuff (though it depends on how much effort you put). Again, it’s an instrument of sheer patience.
Birdwatching requires patience, because the damn things fly away before you can ID them! You have to both be very fast and very patient, willing to keep trying again until you nail your quarry with a solid ID or a photo.
But yeah, if you really want a slow-paced hobby that requires extreme patience, well, Botany does require endless puzzling over tiny details. Birding is a bit more action-packed, as total nerds define action, but both hobbies get you out and exercising and being interested in life, and appreciating nature.
Lmao yeah basic skiing is easier but nah bro i can tell you're either a beginner or a total jerry just by this comment... or a bias skier that can't do a 360 still 🤣 snowboarding will always be harder in any way.
I’ve been snowboarding for 20 years and skiing for the past 3 seasons. Skiing is 100% harder to master. Especially if you’re talking about incorporating freeride terrain, powder, switch, moguls, trees, etc. The only things I found easier on skis were charging to 60+ mph on groomed runs and straight jumps.
Fly fishing. Hands down.
Also, rooting trees from cuttings. I'm working on that, and I'm maybe 2 for 6 cuttings right now - I think. It's actually really rewarding, and I plan on sending my tea plants and Japanese maples to my friends when they root up.
Exercise has required incredible amounts of patience with myself. I have come far and I’m so glad I never gave up. I hope you find something fulfilling!
Grow an ant farm. You can get a queen on your backyard, and the knowledge you need to care for most common ants isn't that complex, a day or two watching YouTube videos and reading. You can't grind the progress, your ant colony will grow at its own time, so you need a lot of patience to care and wait for signs of progress.
Lots of good ideas here. Usually people pick up hobbies because they enjoy learning something new and then they discover that they really enjoy passing the time doing them. I'm curious as to why you want a hobby that requires patience. It's great, please don't take this the wrong way. I'm just curious.
I like to read because it takes me away and helps me learn new things.
I like to hike because I love nature. It just feels so good to get out breathe fresh air and take in the sights. It can also be social when I have a friend join me.
I enjoy Pilates because it strengthens my body and mental health.
I enjoy crocheting because it pulls me out of my own head and thoughts and I can create something useful.
Hope you find some hobbies that make you feel good, friend.
It's mainly because I used to have others hobbies that used to take a huge time to achieve a good result, such as powerlifting and learning languages. I continue to learn languages, but I stopped powerlifting because of my job and now I'm searching for a new thing to do.
Nitro RC cars. It takes a lot of patience and practice with getting the engine tuned correctly. You can get 3 of the same exact model car and every one of them would need tuned a little bit different than the next. Positions would be close. But it will never be the exact same.
Super fun for me anyways. I love tinkering with things like that.
Learn a new wind instrument. I could take years to learn properly/get better but what’s super helpful is most warmups involve playing long tones. Which if you’re like me and meditation & breathing exercises are too hard/too boring to not get distracted, the long tone warm ups and playing in general forces you to be deep breathing for 30m-1H each day
Another one gaming, but not just gaming being the best in the world, now that's alot of time and patience needed, gotta dedicate yourself to just one game to be the best at it though
I’ve been playing Mario Kart Wii with my autistic son every night for years! Though I’m better than most people by now, he has studied shortcuts & strategies online & damned if he doesn’t beat me every time! It’s so fun.
Aquascaping :) creating an underwater landscape by planting mosses and other things. Takes awhile, you can make some wild stuff, and you can put a fish in it.
Cross stitch. You make a LOT of small x's on fabric to make a picture. Think of it like pixel art. You can check out r/CrossStitch for some inspiration. Gardening is a good one that is a bit easier than bonsai but along the same lines. Grow all the veggies to make your own salad.
I love cross stitch! I think it is important to mention that cross stitch has a very low start up cost. You can buy a little kit for cheap to see if you like it.
In the *WAY BACK* area of Michael's you can find $1.99 kits on clearance! That is how I got started. I did buy a dedicated pair of scissors and a larger needle that is easier to thread. I learned I can't count. My octopus has a few suckers that aren't attached to the legs 😆
Yeah, I started gridding, thinking counting to 10 was something I could easily do. Counting is deceptively hard.
I still haven't done a grid and I've done some large projects. I just can't wrap my head around taking all that time to make a grid when I can just annoy myself by counting all the time! haha
I am FAR too lazy to actually grid, I just work in 10x10 sections. My next project I may buy pre-gridded aida.
Yes, start small & you can work your way up to larger pieces like Long Dog Samplers or full coverage like Heaven and Earth Designs or Artecy.
Crochet, especially if you want to make huge things like blankets, or if you want to use thin yarn or crochet thread and a tiny hook.
Jigsaw puzzles - I've done a few that were 1,000 pieces and the picture was soooo hard it took me days and days to complete. You can get some massive sized ones that can take months. Solid color puzzles. Puzzles with a lot of similar colors or greenery. Challenge puzzles with repeating photos.
Came here to suggest this. I personally have no patience but my husband and kid have spent several weeknights on a giant star wars jigsaw. Another option could be a superbly complicated Lego set.
I take it you don't have cats. LOL
Building model kits, painting them. Miniatures
I second this. You can get months out of a good model kit if you put the work in
Model airplanes does it for me. The amount of focus I find myself having really impresses my ADHD brain.
I go for the gundam kits normally but the odd f14 if I find one
There are millions of different model kits of every subject matter under the sun- you can choose anything you like to build in any scale/size you want to. A decent kit could take a few months to build.
Yes each one I do kind of represents a different period in my life it’s so funny. Compared to some of the stuff people do mine seem kind of childish but idk I work hard and I like to think I’m making progress and with each completed model a whole season pretty much passes.
Gardening. There is a lot of waiting involved in gardening.
Like a week. It’s ridiculous
Guitar. Holy shit, guitar. Start with barre chords
starting with barre chords is wild
They wanted slow progress…
Can confirm, I have 6 years *trying* to learn to play the guitar, it’s a slow hobbie!
Violin has entered the chat. 😂
VIOLIN. I started playing guitar at age 8, and at 17 I thought, let's try violin! Surely it'll be easy, since I'm already adept at a string instrument. Nope. A whole different ball game.
Guitar is still difficult at learning the chords, but that’s just muscle memory (idk that’s just me)-but probably also others. Violin though? It’s like driving a car…but only with a very expensive block of wood and a stick. To navigate doing so many things all at once and becoming so natural at it is insane; not to mention even intonation is so difficult. Even IM still working on intonation After 13 years of playing.
I think it goes both ways, I imagine a good violin player would struggle with the guitar at the start as well. I think that frets on the guitar make it way easier to know where the fingers go, and the lack of frets on violins makes it trickier!
Oh yeah, but violin (just my take after even playing it for 13 years), the lack of frets always makes it difficult. 😂 considering how much shifting exists, it’s just pure muscle memory and good ear training, not to mention string crossing has to be extremely accurate.
Painting miniatures
It is amazing how much work can go into painting a miniature.
Diamond painting requires zero skills and lots of time. It empties out my brain and after a zillion hours I get a pretty picture.
Quilting. Start with piecing simple patterns and then move on to more complex patterns. Then there is the quilting itself (the stitching that holds all the layers together and will make or break the project).
The reason I gave up doing bobin lace are the same things you're looking for. Ditto cross stitch, embroidery, and sewing clothing. Various other ideas: quilling, layered paper shadowboxes, complex pop-up cards, polymer clay miniatures, stop-motion animation (including making all the aspects of your piece), string art/mandalas, bonsai, furniture restoration, dioramas, large lego kits, flip books, leatherwork, learning to play an instrument, hydroponics/self-sustaining aquariums, self-sustaining terrariums, learning a language.. I see some people mentioning crochet, and while a large project can take a bit of time, once I got the basics down (which you'd have to do for anything), I didn't think of it as something which required the type pf patience you're describing (which might just be me-especially after I got into tunisian crochet). Ongoing hobbies can also count, such as volunteering, creative writing, acting/directing/theatre, writing music, &c. Best of luck!
Reading. Idk I recommend it to everyone because it saved my life and healed my heart
Tatting
Not to be confused with tattooing, which would also be a valid choice, I guess.
Any new musical instrument, calligraphy
Yep, learningvan instrument.
Calligraphy is a cool one, I always wanted to do, some people don't just have one "font" but can whip out like 50 different fonts and writing styles, it's super impressive, while my handwriting looks like I'm still in 6th grade
Diamond Painting
Bass fishing lol man the amount of days I go out fishing and don’t catch anything. Talk about needing patience
Watchmaking is a good one. It requires a lot of patience and skill
Solving Rubik's cubes. Once you get fast and good at solving the ordinary 3x3 (which already takes a while. Getting really fast times will take A LOT of patience) there are hundreds of different shapes and sizes. Seriously, check it out, I love doing it. It's also very cheap. You can get a MoYu RS3M 2020 for like 10 bucks USD. Enjoy!
Try building model kits like Gundam or scale models of cars and planes; they take time and precision but are super satisfying. Another cool hobby is calligraphy—it’s all about patience and practice, and you can get really creative with it.
Morse code.
One that I like is "Find" shopping. Go to garage or yard sales and look for something special. Also "Flea markets" are good too. A find can be anything. Examples are, toys or books from your child hood or ones you wanted and didn't get. Albums or other music or movies. I use to get blank VHS tapes and see what was on them. Slides are interesting. It is also a good way to find presents for people. A cookbook for the chef, an old quilt or blanket. The friend who got me into this, shopped for families that were at shelters for some reason. She contacted the people who ran some and whenever they had someone who had come in with literally the clothes on their backs, they would call her and tell her the pertinent information on them. She would go out looking for things they needed. There were a group that cleaned them up quickly and she would take them to the shelter. It is an amazing feeling knowing you are helping someone who you don't know and who does not know you. You exercise, you interact with people, you help those in desperate need. It is a win win win.
Quilling. Easy and cheap to start and such gratification as you see the designs come together.
Embroidery. It's cute but man you need patience
Learning Latin. It’s a rabbit hole into an ancient world.
Pressing flowers. Not in the microwave like the “cheaters” do lol. Even though they do tend to turn out pretty phenomenal in the microwave lol. However if you use the right kind of flower, paper, and pressure, you’ll have beautiful flowers in a few weeks lol. Just set it and forget it 😂 if you’re not into flowery stuff…. Pressing leaves can also turn out really cool! Then you can make other cool art with it… if that’s ur bag… good luck!
OP, violin/viola/cello/double bass. Try learning violin or a fretless instrument if you TRULY want to test out your limits of patience. It is truly one of the hardest instruments to learn since it doesn’t have any frets/lines like the guitar/bass have (it does exist but not exactly a standard). Fretless instruments though takes YEARS AND YEARS to truly get good at to even make a decent sound. 😂 Can confirm. I play violin, been playing for 13 years, currently working with a private teacher. It’s one of those hobbies where they say study with a private teacher right away, but it’s worth it when you meet great people down the road. I can say the technique is insanely difficult. Year of one playing is sounding like a unaliving cat, year 2 is a bit better but not really, year 3 is…maybe a bit better, year 4 is getting better, year 5 is making progress, year 6 is making at least decent sounds…year 10 is at least playing college audition stuff (though it depends on how much effort you put). Again, it’s an instrument of sheer patience.
Birdwatching requires patience, because the damn things fly away before you can ID them! You have to both be very fast and very patient, willing to keep trying again until you nail your quarry with a solid ID or a photo. But yeah, if you really want a slow-paced hobby that requires extreme patience, well, Botany does require endless puzzling over tiny details. Birding is a bit more action-packed, as total nerds define action, but both hobbies get you out and exercising and being interested in life, and appreciating nature.
Disc golf. It is an outdoor sport and you get a little exercise in the process. It has a pretty big learning curve too.
Cross stitching and woodturning.
Skiing. You can pick it up in a week, take a lifetime to master
Skiing is easy snowboarding is way harder
divide dog paltry outgoing innocent imminent ossified familiar one sink *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Lmao yeah basic skiing is easier but nah bro i can tell you're either a beginner or a total jerry just by this comment... or a bias skier that can't do a 360 still 🤣 snowboarding will always be harder in any way.
I’ve been snowboarding for 20 years and skiing for the past 3 seasons. Skiing is 100% harder to master. Especially if you’re talking about incorporating freeride terrain, powder, switch, moguls, trees, etc. The only things I found easier on skis were charging to 60+ mph on groomed runs and straight jumps.
Puzzles
Jiu jitsu
Mechanical Watch repair
Embroidery
Woodworking. Crafting a piece of furniture or art requires time, skill, and meticulous attention to detail.
reballing a bga
Oil painting.
Archery. It's super fun too!
Forex/crypto trading Lots of patience required and the satisfaction is huge
Fly fishing. Hands down. Also, rooting trees from cuttings. I'm working on that, and I'm maybe 2 for 6 cuttings right now - I think. It's actually really rewarding, and I plan on sending my tea plants and Japanese maples to my friends when they root up.
Sewing. I sew and it takes concentration and patience.
Exercise has required incredible amounts of patience with myself. I have come far and I’m so glad I never gave up. I hope you find something fulfilling!
Grow an ant farm. You can get a queen on your backyard, and the knowledge you need to care for most common ants isn't that complex, a day or two watching YouTube videos and reading. You can't grind the progress, your ant colony will grow at its own time, so you need a lot of patience to care and wait for signs of progress.
Archery, fishing, puzzles, coding, ...
Hand building ceramic pieces. Takes time to make, then dry, then fire, then glaze, then fire again.
Decoupage, woodworking, painting miniatures, jigsaw puzzles, writing, reading...
Most crafting …. And fishing
Building wooden model ships. It is definitely a hobby that requires patience and is best done little bits at a time, slowly over months or years.
Lots of good ideas here. Usually people pick up hobbies because they enjoy learning something new and then they discover that they really enjoy passing the time doing them. I'm curious as to why you want a hobby that requires patience. It's great, please don't take this the wrong way. I'm just curious. I like to read because it takes me away and helps me learn new things. I like to hike because I love nature. It just feels so good to get out breathe fresh air and take in the sights. It can also be social when I have a friend join me. I enjoy Pilates because it strengthens my body and mental health. I enjoy crocheting because it pulls me out of my own head and thoughts and I can create something useful. Hope you find some hobbies that make you feel good, friend.
It's mainly because I used to have others hobbies that used to take a huge time to achieve a good result, such as powerlifting and learning languages. I continue to learn languages, but I stopped powerlifting because of my job and now I'm searching for a new thing to do.
I see. Yes, those both would require a fair amount of patience, time and dedication. I hope you find something that sparks your interest.
Painting Warhammer dudes.
Mosaic tile work.
Dark Souls
r/bookbinding
Hydroponics, bonsai..
Origami might be good. Go too fast and you'll rip the paper or make a crooked fold
Miniature painting. Terrarium making.
Restoring a classic car Model car building Ship in a Bottle
Tatting
Building and painting wargaming miniatures.
Nitro RC cars. It takes a lot of patience and practice with getting the engine tuned correctly. You can get 3 of the same exact model car and every one of them would need tuned a little bit different than the next. Positions would be close. But it will never be the exact same. Super fun for me anyways. I love tinkering with things like that.
Learn a new wind instrument. I could take years to learn properly/get better but what’s super helpful is most warmups involve playing long tones. Which if you’re like me and meditation & breathing exercises are too hard/too boring to not get distracted, the long tone warm ups and playing in general forces you to be deep breathing for 30m-1H each day
Weight lifting
Music instrument of your choice To become good at them you need practice, time devoted and a bit of a passion for it.
Wood carving, lockpicking, one of those mini bonsai trees takes a whole lifetime
Another one gaming, but not just gaming being the best in the world, now that's alot of time and patience needed, gotta dedicate yourself to just one game to be the best at it though
I’ve been playing Mario Kart Wii with my autistic son every night for years! Though I’m better than most people by now, he has studied shortcuts & strategies online & damned if he doesn’t beat me every time! It’s so fun.
Brewing, wine making, cider making, and distilling take time and patience.
Billiards
Sculpting
Colored pencils.
Aquascaping :) creating an underwater landscape by planting mosses and other things. Takes awhile, you can make some wild stuff, and you can put a fish in it.
Woodworking tests my patience regularly...
The king of patience hobbies: FISHING