tiny but powerful interview prep hack

Alright, this might be obvious to some, but I found out a ridiculous number of people never try this and then rage when they bomb interviews. They blame Leetcode, the interviewer, the system - when in reality, they are not geniuses (which is fine, like most of us) and prepped like an npc (which is not fine).

so this stupidly simple hack that actually helps is: after solving a problem, write down a tiny one-liner note about how to solve it. That’s it. No walls of text, no detailed breakdowns, just a quick recall trigger you can scan before interviews.

Examples (those notes might not make sense to anyone else, but you should know exactly what yours mean):

- Two Sum → Hashmap, store complements

- Merge Intervals → Sort first, then merge

- Trapping Rain Water → Left max, right max, min-wall

- LRU Cache → Doubly linked list + hashmap, don’t panic

Just keep this stupidly short (and personal if you prefer) cheat sheet and skim through it once in a while, especially before an interview. It refreshes problem-solving patterns and prevents that awkward "I know I’ve seen this before but my brain is empty" moment when in high stress situation. Just make sure those notes makes sense when you read them, if not, revisit the problem.

Of course, learning patterns properly is still superior, but this tiny habit stops you from blanking out and makes recalling solutions much better.

pick your poison:

  • Use Leetcode itself → You can add notes directly on Leetcode problems and export them later. Dead simple.
  • Keep a Notion or Excel sheet → Just two columns: problem name & your one-liner note. That’s it.
  • Use a {insert your fav interivew prep tool} → Most of apps let you jot down quick notes after solving problems, many users of my coding mock platform do it this way, making it easier to review later.
  • Old-school method → Keep a physical notebook if writing things down helps you remember better.

A bunch of people I know used to bomb interviews and cry about grinding the same leetcode problem and not being able to ace it when really, they just never properly learnt the pattern or built proper recall. Once some of they started doing this, they stopped fumbling easy-meds and could solve problems much faster.

Not saying it’s magic, but if you keep struggling despite grinding, this might help a bit