On the 23rd of January, I started a challenge of solving only Codewars and Leetcode challenges for the next 7 days, nothing else. This is the summary of that experience.

I started out with these ranks on Codewars and Leetcode.

Day 1

Day 1 was very frustrating day because I didn't solve as many as I would have liked. I was aiming for at least 15 solves every day but didn't even come close.

On Codewars, I attempted 8, solved 3, and solved 0 from 1 problem tried on Leetcode. I was able to identify the reason for such a bad first result.

1. I woke up late. My aim for this challenge was to solve 10 problems from both Codewars and Leetcode, and my waking up late didn't help at all. I needed time to think about the problems and find a solution, but there are only so many hours in the day.

2. I was impatient. I started with Codewars because I found that their problems were slightly easier so I wanted to give myself motivation for the harder ones, but when it got to the tougher questions, I just gave up. I forfeited the kata and when I looked at the solutions, I saw that I was actually on track to solving the problem and I just had to give myself more time. The frustration kept piling up and I only managed three solutions and none of those came from Leetcode.

3. There were too many distractions. I had so many things distracting me while thinking of a solution for the problems. My phone buzzed every second, I was listening to music, and that open YouTube tab kept calling me to finish that video I started.

Thankfully, I took my advice and did better on day 2.

Day 2

Day 2 was much better. I fixed what went wrong on day 1 and there were improvements.

I attempted 7 Codewars problems and solved 5 of them, and solved 5 as well from 8 attempted on Leetcode.

I didn't reach my goal but seeing that improvement gave me so much motivation for day 3.

Day 3

I woke up feeling strong and motivated and after the morning rituals, I went straight to my computer to get started.

At the end of the day, I attempted 20 questions in total (10 each), solving 9 from Codewars and 6 from Leetcode. Massive improvement from day 1.

Nothing much happened today apart from me buzzing with excitement.

Day 4

It seems like I was on a motivation high because solving 9 from 10 Codewars challenges and 10 out of 10 from Leetcode was absolutely insane.

This result is a bit shocking because Codewars' challenges are generally easier than Leetcode's, but I'll take it. Onto day 5.

Day 5

Day 5 started off quite slowly. The challenge was to only solve problems on the platforms but I was really starting to miss building projects so I lost a bit of momentum going into today. I attempted 6 problems and solved 4 from Codewars, and attempted 10 problems and solved 7 from Leetcode.

I found myself doing more on Leetcode than on Codewars, and I'm not sure why but I think some of the challenges on Codewars were buggy. My code would return the correct answer, but the test cases would not be well-defined. Oh well.

Day 6

Day 6 was probably the worst day of this challenge. I was tired, felt burnt out, and just wanted it to end. I still tried to do something and I attempted and solved 2 and 3 from Codewars and Leetcode respectively. That was probably because I handpicked the questions that looked easy because my brain wasn't even trying to think.

Day 7

At the end of day 6, I calculated the sum of all my attempts and solves and realized I needed to attempt 15 problems to reach 100. I didn't have a goal at the beginning but I felt having 100 attempts in 7 days would be nice. So that's what I did. I attempted 7 problems from Codewars and solved 6, and solved 7 from 8 attempts on Leetcode

Final Statistics

23-Jan-2023 (Day 1): Codewars: Attempted, 8, solved, 3. Leetcode: Attempted, 1, solved, 0.

24-Jan-2023 (Day 2): Codewars: Attempted, 7, solved, 5. Leetcode: Attempted, 8, solved, 5.

25-Jan-2023 (Day 3): Codewars: Attempted, 10, solved, 9. Leetcode: Attempted, 10, solved, 6.

26-Jan-2023 (Day 4): Codewars: Attempted, 10, solved, 9. Leetcode: Attempted, 10, solved, 10.

27-Jan-2023 (Day 5): Codewars: Attempted, 6, solved, 4. Leetcode: Attempted, 10, solved, 7.

28-Jan-2023 (Day 6): Codewars: Attempted, 2, solved, 2. Leetcode: Attempted, 3, solved, 3.

29-Jan-2023 (Day 7): Codewars: Attempted, 7, solved, 6. Leetcode: Attempted, 8, solved, 7.

Codewars: Total attempted: 50. Total solved: 38. 76%

Leetcode: Total attempted: 50. Total solved: 38. 76%

Total Attempted = 100

Total Solved = 76

Solve percentage = 76%

Conclusion

This challenge was very demanding. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to do it, but I learned a lot from it. I don't know if I will do it again but for now, I'm happy it's over and I can go back to building projects again.