How much time have you spent solving problems?

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Hello Codeforces!

Since I have exams in a few days, I was thinking about what I have spent my life on, and why I haven't been preparing for the exams all that time, doing CP instead. So, I decided to calculate a rough amount of time I have spent solving problems.

Codeforces

I have participated in $$$152$$$ contests, each being $$$120$$$ minutes on average. I have upsolved $$$892$$$ problems. There were a lot of easy problems that I've solved in $$$10$$$ or $$$20$$$ minutes, and there were some problems I had to think about for more than $$$5$$$ hours. Since solving problems also involves coding them, I decided to take the average as $$$60$$$ minutes.

Summing up, I have spent $$$152 * 120 + 892 * 60 = 71760$$$ minutes or $$$1196$$$ hours spent on $$$152$$$ contests and $$$892$$$ upsolved problems on codeforces platform.

atcoder

I have participated in $$$28$$$ atcoder contests, each being $$$100$$$ minutes on average. I have upsolved near to $$$50$$$ problems, and as with the case of codeforces, I decided to take the average time spent on a single problem as $$$60$$$ minutes.

Summing up, I have spent $$$28 * 100 + 50 * 60 = 5800$$$ minutes or $$$96$$$ hours spent on $$$28$$$ contests and $$$50$$$ upsolved problems on atcoder platform.

These were all of the specific platforms I've ever tried.

National olympiads

During the last 4 years I've participated in many national olympiads. I have participated in roughly $$$32$$$ national contests of any type(being national OI, national OI selections, selections to IOI, etc). All contests had duration of $$$5$$$ hours. Summing up, $$$32 * 5 = 160$$$ hours spent on any kind of national OI contests.

International olympiads

I've taken part in $$$2$$$ RMI editions, each having $$$2$$$ contests.

I've participated in $$$2$$$ IZHO olympiads, each having $$$2$$$ contests.

I've participated in $$$1$$$ IATI competition, consisting of $$$2$$$ contests.

All of the contest had durations of $$$5$$$ hours. Summing up, $$$4 * 5 + 4 * 5 + 2 * 5 = 50$$$ hours spent on solving problems from international competitions.

Other

During my CP career, I've solved a lot of problems. Some were given to me by my coach or friends, some I have solved while practicing new techniques. My estimation of the number of solved problems on platforms other than Codeforces and atcoder is near 250 problems. For these problems, I decided to lower the average time spent on sovling a single problem to 45m.

Summing up, $$$250 * 45 = 11250$$$ minutes or $$$187$$$ hours spent on solving problems from other platforms.

Conclusion

The total time spent on solving any problems from any contests or olympiads is $$$1196 + 96 + 160 + 50 + 187 = 1689$$$ hours.

It means that I've spent 1689 hours or 70.4 days solving problems without any breaks. That's a huge number, right?

Of course, the calculations were made with awful precision, and are partially based on my personal feelings. Still, I expect them to be at least the lower bound on the real result.

Would I, if possible, go through all that once again? Certainly.

Would I recommend anyone else to try spending hundreds or thousands of hours solving algorithmic problems? Yes! It was the best experience in my life.

I wrote this post because I wanted to share my story. If you can, leave a comment below this post with your calculations of the time spent solving problems, or any other related data. I am looking forward to hear your story!