Ok. So today I have signed up to yet another online thing-ma-bobs-it - with yet another password to remember. And it is starting to stress me out!
I was thinking about ways of remembering the swathe of passwords I already have, and have exhausted the 'family members/ mother's maiden name/ first school/ first pet/ other half's birthday' pool and now to make matters worse, several of my passwords have to include both numbers and characters. My old trusty passwords simply don't cut the mustard anymore and in a panic to find new ones, I sometimes think of the thing nearest to me at the time, which is quickly forgotten.
Surely this is a growing problem for everyone? How do others cope? Am I just getting old? I was thinking about how I could train my brain to remember things better, using mnemonics, or other such learning devices and I came across this video on YouTube. I had a go but it didn't seem to work so well for me. I thought it was funny that the presenter keeps looking off the side to read his prompts - shouldn't he have memorised them with this technique?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz4voNYevvII would welcome any other tips from members as to how to sharpen up my recall ability because the battle of the passwords is certainly starting to grind me down! What do you use? Am I untrainable?
6 Responses
Train my brain to remember things
Hi, Verity, you are not alone! However much I appreciate the need for security online, I still get irritated by those passwords requiring replacements monthly or more frequently.
I was introduced to a great little book "Use Both Sides of Your Brain" by Tony Buzan. As well as containing some good explanations of how memory works, there are lots of great tips for improving attention-span and commiting to memory , including the mnemonics demonstrated on the YouTube clip.
When I worked for a corporate who changed passwords monthly, with a bar on recycling old ones, I used to remember a holiday destination and year then move onto the next year (eg scotland98, france99, etc). Works equally as well working throught the alphabet with boy’s/girl’s names (alison01, brian02, etc), or any other list that keeps your interest.
Good luck
Alan
http://www.performanceconsultants.co.uk
The nightmare of half remembered passwords
It’s definitely linked to age. I can hardly remember a password an hour after I’ve chosen it. I like the suggestion of alphabet names but am afraid I wouldn’t remember where I’d got to in the alpabet. I use groups of things – currently birds! Yet even then I forget which bird or birds belong to which site. The last one reminded me by giving my prompt statement which was collectable birds…..Would you have guessed it was ‘magpies’ ? I remembered it!!
Charlotte Mannion http:www.quicklearn.co.uk
Thanks for the tips!
Good advice – thanks for adding that. I will check out Tony’s book too – anything that helps. Funnily enough I have an astonishingly good long term memory recall, it’s the pesky short term that causes me issues!
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Try using RoboForm
I can really recommend this programme, it is a fairly cheap utility called RoboForm and the website is www.roboform.com
same difference
Doesn’t help with passwords that need changing on a regular basis but a way that means you only have to remember one thing for all passwords is to use the first and second or first and third, first and last, doesn’t matter which 2 but always the same 2 letters of the site name, the same 6 letter word and two numbers. For example this could be TZbanana22, or trbanana22, etc Wouldn’t recommend using the same combination for critical things like banks as someone potentially could crack your code but certainly works for every day sites and keeps them all different.