Honestly, for a beginner, the amount of resources to practice from and the huge number of platforms available is overwhelming. So I have decided to stick to one place and keep practicing consistently. SPOJ seemed like a really good place and so did the UVa problem collection to hone skills. Atcoder contests are good but solutions are in japanese :/ , leetcode contests are relatively easier.

I want to improve my problem-solving skills and I have a year of free time, what best practices would you guys suggest ? should I pick a tag and solve different problems to learn the technique? or just pick CF div2 contests, upsolve the problems and learn by doing that? what is the fastest way to become good at this stuff?

This is my first blog on codeforces. I am just trying to track my progress as I go through solving problems in the following ladder by ahmed aly -> https://a2oj.com/ladder?ID=11

I solved 5 easy problems today, difficulty level 1 problems are really easy. These are mostly typing practice so I aim to finish these quick and move to difficulty level 2 problems. I have just started competitive programming again. I have had some experience with it in the past but ever tried it seriously enough and this is why I decided to follow the ladder and take part in contests.

A good tool I found to keep track of contests -> https://clist.by/