Going All In on a Password Manager App
"If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?"
- Joe Namath
I have chatted before about backups, data location redundancy and internet security.
Some of you may have listened to me go on about the need to adopt a cloud security policy and communicate it - some of you have done my workshop on it.
For those of you who have not had the experience of me rattling on about security policies here is a super short version.
Back up your data
Enable 2FA wherever possible
Adopt a password manager
Backing up data is easy.
It’s a set-it-and-forget-it process
Except for making sure you review your weekly summary to confirm everything is working as it should
Enabling 2-Factor Authorization is pretty simple as well.
Instructions in apps are usually concise and easy to follow
You will be given an option to scan a QR code and the 2FA practically sets itself up
Both of these key security protocols are no-brainers to go all in.
A password manager app is another story altogether.
It can seem daunting to go all in. To let go of the ease of using Chrome to store your login details. To not use your pet/child name and “1234!” at the end of those names (not that anyone does that). To give up control of knowing your passwords.
This was me. I knew I had to adopt a password manager. My password “system” stank - it was insecure and frustrating. But it was the enemy I knew.
So although I signed up for 1Password, I was not engaged in it. I didn’t love it - in fact, I loathed it. But I made a deal with myself to dive in by last April. I set a deadline to get my act together and go all-in on it.
Of course I waited until just before my deadline to get on with my deep dive, so I only had a week to get this done and dusted. It was intense, frustrating and painful - but only for a few days. When it was all set up a wonderful thing happened. Once I went all in, it turns out I loved using my 1Password.
I did not see this coming.
Before I went all in I was fully committed to not embracing this change.
Does this sound familiar to you?
Here’s how I set up 1Password (any password protector will be the same steps) in those few last days of March. The steps, that in hindsight, I wish I would have done years ago rather than months ago.
Enabled the 1Password Chrome extension on all my “Chrome People”
Downloaded the 1Password app to my computer so I could easily make edits and create 1Password backups
Put the 1Password app on all my devices
This is is critical - this is the one thing I did not do soon enough that made the key difference in my adoption
I relentlessly used suggested passwords to replace my previous ridiculously obvious, over-used, re-used ones
This was the hard part - it took patience to request password re-sets, to use the manager to generate new ones, to copy/paste back into the reset boxes
I’m still doing this for some sites that I rarely access, so it does take time to get it all done
I don’t know my passwords now*. I don’t need to - they automagically populate when I log in everywhere. It’s seamless and wonderful.
Because I went all-in with the change.
A Zapier blog I loved this week on embracing automation is completely counter to this week’s theme of “Going All In”. It’s about analyzing what you can automate, defining your systems and setting your self up for success with automation.
But I thought it was a great read and wanted to share it with y’all.
How to automate a manual process without feeling overwhelmed.
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Check out my Youtube videos on Chrome Here
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
::Shameless Call To Action::
I sell bookkeeping templates, standard operating process handbooks and client guides.
*I have a system of regularly downloading my 1Paswword data - my login information. I do not want to be caught in an app or server farm outage and not be able to log in to my key cloud sites.
“Redundancy for the sake of redundancy”
