This has been a great platform for people interested in learning how to solve algorithms. Thanks to everyone of them who have been great contrubutors to this platform.

I am a data engineer with 10 years experience working predominantly on SQL and have gotten opportunity to work on python last one year. I have been trying to solve easy and medium level problems atleast for last 2 months. I would have worked on atleast 40 problems until now. The fact is I would have solved only 10-20% of the problems without seeing any solution on my own. Most of the times I am only half way in solving problems and finally land in no mans land. Even the easy problems I spend a long time to solve. The way I solve irrespective of the difficulty level (easy or medium) I spend hours or sometimes 1 full day to see if I can find a solution on my own and then finally give up. I sometimes feel I have worked on 40 problems but why am I still struggling so much to solve even a easy one.

Spending a day to solve a problem I feel is not right. I am having my own doubts if I am preparing myself in the right direction. Sometimes makes me feel depressed as I am not able to solve most of them. On an average I am trying to solve 1 or 2 in a day. I am not sure this rate of solving problems is okay. My aim is to atleast solve easy ones pretty fast which I am not able to do now. Also sometimes the same problem which I saw the solution if I revisit after a week I take little longer time to solve or sometimes end up seeing the solution again.

Have anyone faced this situation. Can you please advise me how to effectively prepare, time to spend on a single problem, is it okay to see the solution for every problem.

However depressing, the 40 problems I had worked has definitely opened some areas of my brain. I was too naive when i started to solve but now I feel little (may be 5%) better than what I was when i started my LC preparation.

Really appreciate the advice from all the experts.