There are perhaps about a million and one passwords and PINs we all need to remember and this applies to anyone who lives a modern day life in the 21st century. From the password you use for your primary email address, which you perhaps don’t have trouble remembering since you probably access your email account daily, to some secondary email accounts or memberships to some other sites you use on occasion — it can all get a bit too much. This should never be an excuse for you to drop your personal and online security game however, because it can take just one moment of complacency to truly complicate your life.

So there are some best practices to keep implementing with regards to your password and your internet security by extension, many of which are simple enough not to have to make you want to keep a text file with all your passwords somewhere on your computer. Don’t do it!

Change Your Passwords Regularly

In addition to using the password selection guidelines extended to you by whatever platform for which password you’re choosing, make sure to change your passwords regularly. Once every three months should be fine, but more often than that is perfect. You can use an incremental system and perhaps append or add in any way some numeric characters and others to the passwords you choose. Something like iterating through a nonsensical sentence will do to ensure you never forget your passwords.

Forget Your Password

You read right! This is perhaps the most secure way of ensuring nobody can ever guess your passwords, provided of course you still have access to your primary email or whatever primary method of communication you listed in case you forget your password. Have a new one sent to you every time you’ve forgotten it by clicking the “resend/reset my password” or “forgot password” option on the login form.