In the past couple of months, I have been consistently trying to do leetcode. There are a few types of questions I can easily crack now within a few minutes. However, I have observed that my original thinking has actually taken a hit after doing a lot of leetcode.

Whenever I see a problem now, I tend to map it to one of the existing problems which I have solved. Quite a few times it works well, i.e. for easy and medium problems. But, and this a big but, it won't work for more involved problems.

I always keep on trying to map in my mind without thinking from the first principles. Due to this I am unable to solve the hard problems which I was earlier able to do, with the basic ideas. The originality of thought seems to be missing now.

I also got the habit of giving up too early. If I get the solution within 10 minutes, I am good to go. But I am unable to think longer and solve a tougher problem, which would require more than 15-20 minutes.

I am really curious to know if there are others who are on the same boat. And how exactly do you tackle this.