I've long held that it's best to keep a written list of passwords that can be safely locked away when not in use. Very safely in may case as anyone who has to listen to me fighting with my desk drawer every morning will testify. The trouble is that now I've just got too many password for this to work.

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For their convenience, password managers such as LastPass and Keepass are very useful. You can use secure passwords and not have to worry about getting locked out when by getting them wrong. There is a cost to this, which is that you'll be lost if you find yourself on a strange computer. I've found that I've been able to learn even some fairly complicated passwords by entering them by hand day after day.

And it doesn't just apply to passwords, what about mobile phone numbers? Jerome K Jerome wrote that it was a rare man who could remember what his wife was wearing the day before but how many of us can remember the mobile numbers of our significant others?

Ever since I was unable to contact my wife because her number was in a phone with a dead battery and non standard charger, I've entered it by hand. Granted I only do this with her number but it does at least mean that I don't have to rely on a battery to contact her. Well apart from the time I got her number wrong as I was about to get into a taxi in Berlin at 11.30pm but the less said about that the better.

So I'm not suggesting that you try and learn every password, just the essentials. You might thank me if your battery runs out.