My mother keeps her passwords on a piece of paper taped to her monitor. It has her bank, her email, her Facebook, her Amazon — everything — in blue ballpoint pen, slightly smudged. She is not alone. Millions of people do some version of this.

The paper method is not as bad as using “password123” everywhere, but it is close. A password manager is safer, faster, and once set up, actually easier. Here is the no-judgment guide.

Pick a Password Manager

Bitwarden is free and open source. It does everything the paid ones do — generates passwords, autofills them, syncs across devices. The free tier is genuinely full-featured. I have used it for four years.

1Password costs about three dollars a month and has a slightly nicer interface. Apple’s built-in Passwords app is fine if you only use Apple devices and never need to share passwords with anyone on Android or Windows. Google Password Manager works in Chrome but ties you to Google’s ecosystem.

Pick one. It barely matters which. What matters is that you use it.

The Master Password

This is the one password you have to memorize. Make it something long but memorable. A phrase works better than random characters: “my dog ate 3 socks in 2020!” is vastly stronger than “P@ssw0rd!” and easier to remember. Write it down once on paper and store it somewhere safe — a locked drawer, a fireproof box. If you forget this password, you lose everything in the manager.

Let It Generate Passwords for You

Stop making up passwords. Every password manager has a password generator that creates long, random strings. Use it for every new account. Yes, the passwords look like gibberish. That is the point. You never need to type them or remember them — the manager fills them in automatically.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication on the Vault

Turn on 2FA for your password manager itself. If someone gets your master password, 2FA is the last line of defense between them and every account you own. Use an authenticator app, not SMS — SMS can be intercepted.

Install the Browser Extension and Phone App

The whole point is that the manager fills passwords in for you. Install the browser extension on your computer and the app on your phone. Enable autofill on both. From that point on, logging into anything is one tap or click. It is actually faster than typing passwords manually.