From the person who made this
The day I lost the plot.
I like to think I'm a smart guy. My friends would tell you I'm a bit of a smarty pants about computers.
So here's the embarrassing part. A while ago, someone fooled me into handing over my email account.
How it happened
My phone rang. A calm, friendly voice said he was from Google. Someone was trying to get into my account, he said, and he was going to help me stop them.
While we talked, real emails from Google landed in my inbox. That's what made me believe him. I found out later he had set them off himself, just to look real.
Then he asked me to read him a code that had just been texted to me. So I did.
That code was the key. A few minutes later, my account was his.
Why it worked on me
It wasn't that I didn't know better. I did. It worked because he was kind, he sounded sure, and he gave me no time to stop and think.
That can happen to anyone. It happens to careful people every single day.
And here's what scared me most when I looked back. My whole life ran through that one email account. Almost every other account I had could be reset from it. One door, and he had the key.
How I got it back
It took me a few days to see what had really happened. Once I did, I got the account back and locked everything down, one step at a time.
I changed how I keep passwords. I added a second lock to my sign-in. I checked that my recovery phone and email were really mine. I wrote my backup codes on paper and put them somewhere safe.
None of it was hard. I just hadn't done it, because nobody had ever walked me through it.
Why this kit exists
Never Lose the Plot is the walk-through I wish I'd had.
It helps you set up an assistant that keeps track of your life with you: your notes, your to-dos, the things you'd hate to forget. And it covers the basics that keep you safe, in plain words, one small step at a time.
You stay in charge the whole way. The assistant helps. It never takes over.
One promise
Nobody real will ever ask you to read them a code. Not Google, not your bank, not us. If someone asks, you hang up. That one line alone is worth writing down.