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Why do you think leetcode is more useful than books?
Keeping your coding skills sharp always helps with interviewing when changing jobs.
Why do you think leetcode is more useful than books?
Keeping your coding skills sharp always helps with interviewing when changing jobs.
There is nothing like doing the problem sets when it comes to learning something like math or computer science. If you did the problem sets successfully but didn't read anything else or go to lectures you pass the class.
Lately I decided I was going to completely understand Java Generics (like how exactly the solver works) and found that there weren't any good books or web pages on the subject, instead I was going to have to read Chapter 18 the Java Language Specification as many times as it takes and come up with my own problem set. (I just wish I had a way of making a unit test that "passes" if the function doesn't compile!)
What I've done and has worked for me: 1. Take the book, leave the phone and laptop at home. Go to a coffee shop, park, bar (a chill kind of bar, not a sports bar or a dive bar) and read. 2. Declare a space in the home to be tech-free. 3. Read after doing some other activity and make that the habit. After I go for runs or mow the lawn, I sit on the back deck and read. <-- this one seems to be the most consistent, but…
I find that not having anything to distract me allows me to absorb more the reading, and when just pondering, the wandering thoughts get to go to interesting places instead of being censored by the urge to check Twitter.
I am still too slow reading books, though, because I don't do this often enough and because I end up interleaving note taking and reading.
Set a goal for number of books, pages, or hours per day you want to read.
Find a time of day that you read - I always read fiction before bed. When I read non-fiction, it is usually with breakfast/before work.
Stop sweating the 'opportunity cost' of doing things - just do them if you enjoy them, and don't worry about how you could have been spending your time more effectively/efficiently.
Phone, wallet, keys, Kobo. That habit was a much easier lift than the guilt-inducing "must read X pages/hours per Y" demands on myself, and it led to more reading.
I limit my actively being read books down so that I've never got more than 2 on the go at once, though quite often I'll only have one being actively read.
It has certainly made a difference for me, as I now get through about 60 books each year.
If you're wanting to read shorter fiction books then try looking at some of the older classics, as they tend to be a lot shorter than modern books.
Why do you think leetcode is more useful than books?
Keeping your coding skills sharp always helps with interviewing when changing jobs.
So what? How much of your time do you spend changing jobs, versus everything else you do?
Secondly, books are overly verbose
Sounds to me like you have some pretty rather odd beliefs. It's not clear, based on this, that you really even want to read more books. I'm very unsure what to tell somebody who seems to basically be saying "I don't find reading valuable, but I want to read more." Ya get what I mean?
It might be time to work on reframing some of your thoughts about this, which might or might not end up with you deciding to even bother. Not that there's anything wrong with that, whichever way it comes out.
All of that said, the best thing I've ever done to help myself read more is simply to set a yearly goal for how many books I want to read (I use Goodreads to keep track). Having a goal hanging over my head is constant motivation to work towards it. But note that while it's a goal, it's not like the "Goal Books" are all books that are meant to be "productive" in some way. IOW, it's not all about learning, or improving skills, etc. I totally intermingle the books I read purely for leisure with the ones I read for any other purpose (which does, at times, include learning, improving skills, etc.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keeping your coding skills sharp always helps with interviewing when changing jobs.
I'd be rich if I had a dollar for every student who told me "I understand the concepts but I can't do the problems" in math or physics and then in debugging their problem solving it became clear that they don't understand the concepts at all. There is nothing like doing the problem sets when it comes to learning something like math or computer science. If you did the problem sets successfully but didn't read anything…