People like to dunk on the password journal but I find it hard to believe that someone is going to break in to your mom's house as the way to access her bank or facebook account.

It's a horrible idea to leave the password for the database sitting next to the admin's workstation. But physical access is a vastly different concern for a corporation than an individual.

Threat surfaces are different for different people. I'd _love_ if my parents kept a separate password notebook instead of an unlocked note on their phone.

2FA is obviously good but different. But a notebook is an entirely offline password manager and it immediately lets people do one of the most important things which is not repeat passwords.

The password journal is probably the safest providing the passwords themselves are strong. The likelihood of someone compromising your mom's passwords online are an order of magnitude greater than someone breaking into her house and copying her journal.

Unless she picked bad ones, or is prone to leaving it places, what exactly is the problem with the journal?