Over-protective Passwords

I pride myself on remembering people’s faces and their names, friends’ birthdays and anniversaries, most of the time.  Thanks to smartphones, this skill is now slowly failing me.  I have relegated the power of my memory to my smartphone.  I spend time keying in friends’ birthdays, anniversaries, important events and tasks, and then all I have to do is wait, wait for the reminders that the phone will unfailingly give me.  All that my phone asks in return is for its battery to be charged, so that it may discharge its duties to me, its master.

So spoilt am I, that I have stopped trying to remember.  This is proving to be a big problem with the numerous passwords my life seems to require, to stay sane, connected and e-protected.

To be a social-butterfly, to tweet like a bird, to chat with friends, to write an email, to unlock my phone, to access my bank account, to write to my kids’ teachers, to access my blog, to buy anything, to sell anything….all of these seem to require passwords.  And then, each time I transact online, I need an OTP. Phew!

How do I remember them?  Sometimes when an application asks me to change passwords, and I key in something that I can easily remember, I get a polite reminder that says, “This password was recently used by you,  or this password is too weak, please key in another password”.

Passwords are supposed to protect, but I feel helpless.  So, recently, I created a master list with all  my passwords written down.  My husband chanced upon this piece of paper, and promptly tore and trashed it, calling it unsafe.

I have now created a digital document with my passwords, and have ‘password-protected’ this document.  I feel a lot better.  And to remember this ‘mother-of-all-passwords’, I have clues stored on my phone!

Hop, hop, hop, from one password to another, to stay sane, connected and e-protected.