it is hard to remember passwords. If you are a senior or adult who keeps forgetting passwords… guess what? Not only are you not alone but it has nothing to do with being a senior. My kids were always forgetting their passwords to the email account they use for homework (Oddly enough not the password for WiFi or the games ….hummmm). I myself suffer from dyslexia and ADHD. This means you are better are remembering passwords than I am. It took me six months to remember my own phone number. However, because I decided that I wanted a carrier in tech I should find a way around this big problem.
Working in a tech company I have to have at least 4-6 different passwords. Depending on the company I could actually get fired for writing the password down anywhere. ( I do remember a guy being escorted off-site because he had done that). I was always forgetting my passwords and having to talk to an admin about having to reset them. This is when she gave me this great trick of remembering passwords. (Turns out she had ADHD and Dyslexia as well )
The Low tech way to remember passwords
We all have our strengths and weakness. The trick is to find a way that works with one of your strengths. You may already know what that is .. we just need to apply that to passwords. The low tech way of remembering passwords is best for those people who are still not sure about using Password keepers.
Muscle Memory
Personally, I’m very good with my hands. My muscle memory is very good I can still dial my grandmother’s phone number on a rotary phone from 45 years ago. I can’t tell you what her phone number is but I can dial it. So to use muscle memory for passwords. I take the current password and type it over and over again in a word document. By the time I have written it 100 times I’m not going to forget the password. (Though if you ask me what it was I would forget )
This would be a great way for those people who play a musical instrument or are good with their hands. (I’m a painter)
Audio memory
in my Senior computer classes, I had a student who loved to sing. Most of our classes were about her editing her audio from some performance or recording session. She had the worst time remembering passwords till I asked her to sing the password. Now that said it would not be a good idea to walk up to the ATM and sing your PIN out loud. however, I know that you can sing in your head. In our last class when she forgot her password all I had to do is hum a few notes of row row row your boat and she could remember the rest of the 9 digit password.
Logical Passwords
it’s hard to remember passwords but people are good at problem-solving. If you are one of those people, maybe having a logic puzzle password may help you remember. Think of your password as a math problem. The number of letters in the site you are visiting multiplied by the year and the site name backward oh and a special character will always help. This one is harder to remember and you should change your password every year but this also makes sure you have a different password for every website.
Example : For google 6 X 20 = “120” Google backwards = “elgooG” Special character is “$”. So your password would “120elgooG$”
I do recommend you change that equation a little bit to suit your own needs but this is much better than “Spot1954”
The High tech way
Before we start talking about storing your passwords. PLEASE do not just put them in a word document called “Passwords”. This will not help you at all if your computer gets lost of stolen. If you must put them in a word document make sure you password protect it.
Use Bitwarden. This will remember passwords for all your websites. So you are no longer having to keep track of hundreds of passwords. All you have to remember is one password and Bitwarden will do the rest. You can even have Bitwarden create secure passwords for you. I have it on all my Mac computers! The best part is that my wife and I share a login so she has access to all my passwords as well. (There are times when I change passwords and forget to tell her)
Oh and its FREE.