The LeetCode Beginner's Guide

General Advice

Regardless of what level you are at, consistency is the key to learning new skills and preventing existing skills from getting rusty. The best way to stay consistent is to create a habit of exercising your skills every day - even if it means only solving one problem each day. If you have time, you can always do more. Some great ways to remain consistent include:

• Daily Coding Challenge
• Study Guides
• Contests

It’s never too early to start any of these. Success on the first try isn’t the key. The most important thing is progress over time. It’s not always visible overnight, or even over weeks, but if you consistently try the daily coding challenge, compete in contests, go through the explore cards, and solve practice problems related to the topic you just learned, over time you will succeed more and more frequently.

I Know a Better Study Strategy!

Experienced users who have navigated LeetCode to sharpen their skills and prepare for interviews, this is a great opportunity to share your knowledge.

If you have a preparation strategy that works for you and you would like to share with others, create a post! Whether it's your post or a post that helped you, share it in the discussion section for this card. We'll collect several high-quality preparation strategies and study guides and add them to the table in the post.

Note: This card provides recommended starting locations and an order in which to learn the material, however it does not provide a rigid timeline over which to learn the material. If you are interested in study guides with a specified timeline or want to hear a LeetCoder's perspective on how to best utilize LeetCode to maximize your studies, then please check out some of the study plans suggested by fellow LeetCoders in the discussion section for this card.

Stay Motivated

The improvements in our knowledge and skills, gained through consistent practice, are difficult to see from a single snapshot in time. When the work is challenging but the reward is not easy to see, there is a risk of becoming demotivated. This can make it difficult to remain consistent. Here are some general tips to stay motivated and consistent:

1. Pick a personal goal:

   • I will solve at least X problems each week. Set the number to be easily attainable, but aim to surpass it.
   • I will reach Knight level in the contest rating.
   • I will attempt every Daily Coding Challenge problem this month.
   • I will solve at least one problem, at this time, every day.

2. Quantify your progress, and plot your results every month or so:

   • Participate in the weekly or biweekly tournaments consistently. You can look back to see how many problems you solved each week. Keep in mind that poor performance weeks are perfectly normal. All that matters is that your average performance improves over time.
   • Twice each week, record how long it takes you to solve two new randomly selected problems, say one easy and one medium. Interview assessments are a good tool for this.

3. Read inspiring comments or posts.

   • What keeps you motivated? Share it in the discuss section!