If you have been using the Internet for any time now, you probably have noticed something… you have a ton of passwords and user accounts you need to keep track of!

Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in, Google Analytics, your blog site, your webmail, your online banking – and the list goes on and on.

If you are out there trying to do a lot of stuff on the web, you need a good system to keep track of your passwords. You don’t want to use all your valuable brain power just trying to remember how to log into all your web-based accounts.

In our web department here at Absolute Marketing Group, we have adopted a strict system of logging and updating passwords in a spreadsheet. We never have to worry about what this username was or what that password was. User account information is available to us immediately, when we need it. We can rely on this system to manage our hundreds of passwords with ease.

Now, you probably don’t have hundreds of passwords and web user accounts, but you probably have more than you want to have! What’s the best way to organize them and keep track of them all?

The most accessible way to keep track passwords, for most people, is to put all your usernames and passwords into a spreadsheet as I mentioned we do here in the web department at Absolute. The benefits to using a spreadsheet? You won’t need to worry about keeping track of sticky notes and emails that all contain the passwords that you try in vain to remember all the time.

Of course, there are applications out there that are developed specifically for password storage. It’s definitely worth a shot to search Google for password storage applications if you are interested.

What you will mostly find with password storage applications is that they encrypt your password repository. This is a good thing. You have to determine for yourself how secure you want to keep your passwords and choose your storage method accordingly. If your computer system is secure and doesn’t have anybody but yourself using it, you are probably safe storing your passwords in a spreadsheet.

Even with all the password storage applications out there, I find a spreadsheet to do the job nicely, and so do many other people.

In addition to storing your passwords, you will want to store other info about the user account too. Having as much information about the user account available as possible will come in handy six months later when you’re trying to log into an account you almost forgot you even had.

Typically, you’ll want to add these columns to the spreadsheet that you will use to keep track of your user accounts:

  • Name of the account (example: Facebook)
  • Log in address (example: http://www.facebook.com)
  • Username
  • Password
  • Notes (you can write anything here if you need to)

This isn’t set in stone, you can set it up however you want, but these columns should work for most people.

Next time your trying to remember a password for something, you won’t need to dig through old stacks of paper or dig through old email – you can just open up your trusty spreadsheet and not worry about what your password is!