With my method, you can create a different password for every website you ever go to, and you’ll always know what the password is without having to memorize it or write it down! The only thing you do have to memorize is one simple “Master Password”, and a personalized “Password Sequence”.

The trick is to combine one simple password, with letters from the current website's address/URL. You will always know which letters of the URL you added to your password, because you will always follow a particular sequence of rules.

Anatomy of The Dana Key

All of your passwords will consist of three parts:

1. Your Master Password Key

• What I referred to above as your “one simple password” will now be known as your Master Password Key.
• In order to be sure your passwords are compatible with 99% of websites, you must choose:
  • Three letters (with at least one letter uppercase)
  • One number (a single digit is fine)
  • One special character (@, &, !, #, ?, etc.)

2. Letters from specific positions within the URL

• You will choose letters from specific positions within the URL (the first letter, the second letter, etc)
• You will only reference the letters in between the www. and the .com (or .anything)

3. Your own personal Password Sequence

• Your Password Sequence is the order in which you combine/intertwine the specific letters from the URL with your Master Password Key. You will make every password for every website using this same Password Sequence.

If you’re confused, don’t worry! This method is best explained by example.

An Example of using The Dana Key Method

Before I created an example password with Michael Enright, the host of CBC’s The Sunday Edition, he needed to come up with his Master Password Key and Password Sequence:

Here is what Michael chose for his Master Password Key:

• Three letters (with at least one uppercase letter): caT
• One number: 1963 (a single digit is also adequate)
• One special character: ?

Here is the relatively simple Password Sequence that I took the liberty of making for him:

1. The first letter of the URL
2. All 3 letters of the password with the last letter uppercase
3. The last two letters of the URL
4. The chosen number
5. The chosen special character

Michael orders books online, so in our example, we pretended we were creating a password for www.amazon.com

Here is how we created his password using my method: 

1. First letter of the URL, amazon: a
   • a
2. All 3 letters of the password with the last letter uppercase: caT
   • a caT
3. Last two letters of the URL amazon: on
   • a caT on
4. The chosen number: 1963
   • a caT on 1963
5. The chosen special character: ?
   • a caT on 1963 ?
6. The password is: acaTon1963?

Practise makes purrrfect! Let’s do another one!

This time we’ll make a password for www.cbcmusic.ca

1. First letter of the URL cbcmusic: c
   • c
2. All 3 letters of the password with the last letter uppercase: caT
   • c caT
3. Last two letters of the URL cbcmusic: ic
   • c caT ic
4. The chosen number: 1963
   • c caT ic 1963
5. The chosen special character: ?
   • c caT ic 1963 ?
6. Our Password is: ccaTic1963?

As you can see, our passwords for amazon.com and cbcmusic.ca are different. By memorizing our single Master Password Key, and the Password Sequence that we utilize to put it all together, the next time we go to login at either of those websites, we will be able to figure out what our password is, even though we didn’t memorize it or write it down.

Like any new thing you learn, it can take a bit of practise before you really get comfortable with your Password Sequence. For some people it happens very quickly and naturally.  Others, who are more set in their ways may feel some resistance as they break old habits.  Inevitably, with frequent use, I promise it will become second nature to you.

I hope you find this as exciting as I do. I hope my method will be useful to you for many years to come.  And, I hope I have in fact, “changed your life”.  Best of luck to you!

REMEMBER:

  BEFORE you start creating your own passwords using The Dana Key, I strongly recommend you read this article: Tips for a lifetime of success using The Dana Key