Mind Goes Blank on LeetCode? Here's Your Escape Plan

Why Your Mind Goes Blank ## The Perfection Trap ## Pattern Matching Failure ## Fear of Wrong Approaches ## The 7-Step Approach Generation Framework ## Step 1: Restate the Problem in Your Own Words ## Step 2: Work Through a Concrete Example Manually ## Step 3: Code the Brute Force Solution ## Step 4: Identify the Bottleneck ## Step 5: Pattern Match (Now That You Have Context) ## Step 6: Constraint Analysis ## Step 7: Write Pseudocode for the Optimized Approach ## Starter Questions That Unlock Thinking ## Question Set 1: Simplification ## Question Set 2: Manual Solving ## Question Set 3: Decomposition ## Question Set 4: Constraint Removal ## From Blank Mind to Partial Solution ## Acceptable Partial Progress ## Common Mental Blocks and How to Break Them ## Block 1: "I don't recognize this pattern" ## Block 2: "I can only think of O(n³), which is too slow" ## Block 3: "I don't know any advanced data structures" ## Block 4: "The problem seems impossible" ## Practice Exercises for Blank Mind Recovery ## Exercise 1: The Brute Force Challenge ## Exercise 2: The Manual Solving Journal ## Exercise 3: The Question Checklist ## How Tools Can Model Expert Thinking ## How long should I stay blank before asking for help? ## What if I work through all 7 steps and still have no approach? ## Is it okay to code a solution you know won't pass all test cases? ## How do I get faster at generating approaches? ## Conclusion Originally published on LeetCopilot Blog You understand the problem but have zero idea how to start. That paralysis is fixable. Here's a step-by-step process to get unstuck. You open a new problem. You read it carefully. You understand what it's asking. Then comes the question: "How do I solve this?" And your mind offers... nothing. Not "I have an idea but it's inefficient." Not "I'm stuck on one part." Just complete blankness. Zero starting point. Total paralysis. You reread the problem. Still nothing. You stare at the screen. Still nothing. This isn't being stuck on a specific part of a solution—this is not knowing where to even begin. If you've experienced this, you know how demoralizing it is. You wonder: "Am I just not cut out for this? Why does everyone else seem to know what to do?" The truth? Blank mind paralysis happens to everyone. But there's a systematic way out. This guide will give you a concrete, step-by-step framework for generating approaches when you have absolutely no ideas—turning "I have nothing" into "I have at least a starting point." When faced with a problem, your brain tries to solve it optimally from the start. Your internal dialogue: The problem: You're trying to architect a cathedral before laying the first brick. When your brain can't immediately see the perfect path, it freezes. "I can't see the complete solution, so I can't start." Experienced coders recognize problems quickly: "This looks like sliding window... this is graph BFS... this is DP with memoization." When you're a beginner, nothing looks familiar. You're searching your mental library for patterns, but the library is empty. So you get: "Does not compute." You think: "If I code the brute force, I'm wasting time. I should think until I find the optimal approach." The optimal approach emerges FROM trying suboptimal ones. But if you won't start until you have the optimal one, you're stuck forever. When your mind is blank, follow these steps sequentially. Don't skip. When blank, stop trying to solve. Start by understanding. Write down (or say out loud): Example: "Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters" "I'm given a string. I need to find the longest contiguous portion where no character appears twice. Return the length." Why this helps: Often, blank mind comes from not fully grasping what's being asked. Restating forces clarity. Choose a small, simple example. Solve it by hand. Example: Input "abcabcbb" "Okay, let me manually find the longest substring: Ask yourself: "How did I just do that?" You tracked which characters you'd seen. When you saw a repeat, you started fresh. This manual process IS your algorithm. Now codify it. Rule: If you can solve it by hand, you can code the brute force. Brute force for longest substring: Is this optimal? No. It's O(n³). Is it better than nothing? Absolutely. Why this helps: You've broken the blankness. You have code running. Now you can optimize. Now that you have working code, ask: "What's slow?" In the brute force above: Bottleneck: Checking uniqueness repeatedly with set(substring) Key insight: Can we track uniqueness more efficiently? Idea: Use a hash map to track character counts as we scan. If count > 1, we have a duplicate. You've now identified the optimization path—from blankness. With your brute force in front of you, ask: "Have I seen a similar problem?" Your brute force for longest substring: Pattern match: This looks like sliding window Now you know the right pattern—not by staring at the problem, but by working through it. Look at the problem constraints for hints: Example: 1 <= s.length <= 5 * 10⁴ This validates: "I need to optimize my O(n³) solution." Without this step, you might not realize brute force won't pass. From here, coding is straightforward. When completely blank, ask yourself these: "What if n = 1?" (Smallest possible input) Example: Longest substring with n=1 → answer is 1 This gives you the base case. "What if all elements are the same?" Example: "aaaa" → answer is 1 This reveals edge cases. "What if the input is sorted?" How does that change the problem? Can I sort it? "How would I solve this on paper?" Don't think code. Think process. "What information do I need to track as I solve?" This reveals your state/variables. "When do I make a decision?" This reveals your conditionals. "Can I break this into smaller subproblems?" Example: "Find longest substring" → "For each starting position, find longest substring from there" "Can I solve a simpler version first?" Example: "Find if ANY substring is unique" (easier than finding longest) "What if I ignore the time/space constraint?" Allows you to think solution-first, then optimize. "What if the input is guaranteed to be small (n <= 10)?" Allows brute force thinking without guilt. You don't need a complete solution to make progress. In interviews, these are all valid starts: Option 1: Brute Force with Known Inefficiency "I can solve this with nested loops in O(n²), but I suspect there's a better way. Let me code this first." Option 2: Pseudocode Outline "I don't know the exact implementation, but here's my thinking: [write pseudocode]" Option 3: Example Walkthrough "Let me work through an example and see if a pattern emerges." Option 4: Constraint Analysis "The constraint is n ≤ 10⁵, so I need at least O(n log n). That rules out [approaches I was considering]." All of these show thinking, which is better than silence. Solution: Stop trying to pattern match. Solve it manually first. Pattern recognition comes AFTER understanding the problem. Solution: Code the O(n³) anyway. Seeing it work gives you a foundation to optimize. Solution: Most problems don't need advanced structures. Try: array, hash map, two pointers, sorting. Cover 80% of cases. Solution: It's not. Every accepted problem has been solved by thousands. Start with: "What's one piece of information I can extract from the input?" Pick 5 problems you've never seen. For each: Goal: Train yourself to start, even without the optimal approach. Before opening the code editor: Goal: Internalize that manual solving → algorithm. When blank, ask all7 questions from Step 7 before giving up: Goal: Replace panic with process. The hardest part of blank mind is that you can't see expert internal dialogue. Experts aren't silent when thinking. They ask themselves questions, test ideas, catch mistakes, pivot approaches. Beginners don't have this internal script yet. They sit in silence and call it "thinking." Tools like LeetCopilot can help by modeling this internal dialogue explicitly: asking the clarifying questions experts ask themselves ("What if n=1?"), suggesting starter approaches ("Can you solve this with brute force first?"), and breaking down overwhelming problems into manageable first steps. This teaches you the meta-skill of generating approaches, not just specific solutions. At least 30 minutes working through the 7-step framework. If you've genuinely tried all steps and still have nothing, then seek targeted help. That's fine. Mark the problem, move on, come back in 2 days. Sometimes your brain needs background processing time. Yes. Partial solutions demonstrate thinking. In interviews, 10% credit > 0% credit. Practice the 7-step framework on 20-30 problems. It becomes automatic. Your "time to first idea" will drop from 20 minutes to 2 minutes. Blank mind paralysis isn't a sign of inability—it's a sign of trying to do too much at once. Instead, do them sequentially: Follow this framework the next time your mind goes blank. You'll discover: you're never actually blank—you just haven't asked the right questions yet. The optimal solution doesn't appear fully formed. It emerges from asking: "What's the simplest thing I can try?" Start there. The rest follows. 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Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse COMMAND_BLOCK: def lengthOfLongestSubstring(s): max_len = 0 n = len(s) # Try every possible substring for i in range(n): for j in range(i, n): substring = s[i:j+1] # Check if all characters are unique if len(substring) == len(set(substring)): max_len = max(max_len, len(substring)) return max_len Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: def lengthOfLongestSubstring(s): max_len = 0 n = len(s) # Try every possible substring for i in range(n): for j in range(i, n): substring = s[i:j+1] # Check if all characters are unique if len(substring) == len(set(substring)): max_len = max(max_len, len(substring)) return max_len COMMAND_BLOCK: def lengthOfLongestSubstring(s): max_len = 0 n = len(s) # Try every possible substring for i in range(n): for j in range(i, n): substring = s[i:j+1] # Check if all characters are unique if len(substring) == len(set(substring)): max_len = max(max_len, len(substring)) return max_len COMMAND_BLOCK: Use sliding window with two pointers (left, right) Use hash map to track character frequency in current window For each right pointer position: Add s[right] to window (increment frequency) While window has duplicates (any frequency > 1): Remove s[left] from window (decrement frequency) Move left pointer right Update max length = max(current length, max so far) Return max length Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: Use sliding window with two pointers (left, right) Use hash map to track character frequency in current window For each right pointer position: Add s[right] to window (increment frequency) While window has duplicates (any frequency > 1): Remove s[left] from window (decrement frequency) Move left pointer right Update max length = max(current length, max so far) Return max length COMMAND_BLOCK: Use sliding window with two pointers (left, right) Use hash map to track character frequency in current window For each right pointer position: Add s[right] to window (increment frequency) While window has duplicates (any frequency > 1): Remove s[left] from window (decrement frequency) Move left pointer right Update max length = max(current length, max so far) Return max length - The Core Problem: Blank mind paralysis stems from trying to jump directly to the optimal solution instead of starting with anything; your brain freezes when given an impossible task ("solve this perfectly") but works when given achievable tasks ("describe what we know") - Why It Matters: Interviews punish silence more than wrong approaches; verbalizing thought process (even incomplete) demonstrates problem-solving ability, while blank staring signals inability to handle unknowns - The Framework: 7-step systematic approach generation: (1) Restate problem, (2) Work concrete examples, (3) Brute force first, (4) Identify bottleneck, (5) Pattern match, (6) Constraint analysis, (7) Pseudocode skeleton - Common Beginner Mistake: Believing you need a complete solution before coding anything; partial progress beats perfect silence every time - What You'll Learn: Concrete question templates that trigger thought ("What if n=1?"), brute force as thinking scaffolding, and how step-by-step hinting system can model the internal dialogue experts use to break down unfamiliar problems - "This needs O(n log n)... how do I get that?" - "I should use two pointers... or a hash map... or maybe DP?" - "What's the elegant solution?" - "I need to find/compute..." - "Return..." - a → length 1 - ab → length 2 - abc → length 3 (no repeats) - abca → can't use, 'a' repeats - Start from b: bca → length 3 - Start from c: cab → length 3 - Generating every substring: O(n²) substrings - Checking uniqueness: O(n) per substring - Iterate through all subarrays - Maintain some state (uniqueness) - Update result - "Subarray/substring optimization" → sliding window - "Maintain state as I scan" → two pointers - O(n³) might time out (125 billion operations for max n) - O(n²) might be acceptable (~2.5 billion operations) - O(n) or O(n log n) is ideal - Brute force working - Bottleneck identified - Pattern recognized - Constraints understood - Don't look at solutions - Don't try to optimize - Just code the brute force in 15 minutes - Solve 3 examples by hand - Write down your exact process - Only then translate to code - Restate problem - Manual example - Brute force - Constraints - Understand the problem - Recognize the pattern - Design the optimal algorithm - All simultaneously - Restate problem (understanding) - Work examples (manual solving) - Code brute force (something working) - Find bottleneck (optimization target) - Pattern match (algorithmic insight) - Analyze constraints (validate complexity) - Write pseudocode (structured plan)