I'm not the person you're replying to but I have a fun answer for how I did it before I moved to password managers.

I used to have just a single password, normal-ish password. Reasonable length, some numbers in there, random caps. But in order for me to have unique passwords on every site without losing track of all the passwords, I added the first and last letter of the name of the service at a specific point inside the password. My password was cryptic enough that if you would see it you wouldn't immediately notice it. But for me it meant I had a single strong password that was easy to remember and unique for every service.

I'm still kind of proud of that one, even though I don't use that method anymore.

I don't know, I just think of a word and add/replace a few numbers and whatever I'm required to. Most places specify the minimum requirements ( character n., Numbers, uppercase, special characters etc). I rarely exceed the minimum requirements, though occasionally I do if it helps me remember the password. These days passwords keep getting longer and longer, most sites won't allow registration with anything less than 12 characters and lately I'm seeing some request 16. Backtrack a decade and you were set with something simple like "simpl3".