Hi, codeforces community!
I have graduated from university this year and started my career as a software engineer. During my school life, I was a enthusiast in competitive programming and spent most of my time on solving problems. At that time, my goal is to reach 2400, become a grandmaster. That means I can solve at least one hard problem that is solved by less than 100 people within a codeforces contest
As you can see, I reached the peak of my codeforces rating, 2250, last year. After that, I retired from ICPC and graduated from university. Then I participated in codeforces contests much less frequently and solved much less problems than before. My rating dropped to 2000 around and I felt more struggling on the hard problems. However, I feel reluctant to totally give up my goal. I wouldn't like to compromise with the status quo of declining rating. I still want to become red.
But I'm in a really different situation from when I was in school. In old days, I could spend the whole day focusing on algorithms. While now, I have my job taking at least 40 hours per week. After work, I also need to do another things, such as learning English to improve my career or participating in some meaningless social activities on the purpose of finding my true love girl.
So time management could be a hard problem. That's why I come here for help. I have seen a lot of you continue to participate in CP even if you are a full-time employee. I wonder that how much time you spend on CP currently and how you balance the work and the programing contest?
I'm very impressive with dreamoon_love_AA. He has done a great job after he graduated, participated in many many contests, solved 4000+ problems and recently becomed LGM.