Nine months of grinding alone finally started paying off, and the thing that changed wasn't skill, it was routine

I spent the first six months doing LeetCode in bursts — three hours on Sunday, nothing all week, repeat. Progress was basically flat. Switched to 30 minutes every single day, same time, no exceptions, even if it was one easy problem I could've done in my sleep. The daily version, less total time some weeks, moved me further in three months than the burst version did in six. I think the actual skill gain was similar either way — what changed was that I stopped losing the thread between sessions. Consistency beat intensity for me, which wasn't the answer I wanted to hear a year ago.