Ahh, in life understanding comes late.

When I record dates in my paper notebook I write 03AUG06. When I poke that keyboard I tap out 2006-08-03. For a while, I was doing yymmmdd. Then I tried two letter months. JY for July and JN for June. But that didn’t sort or set well.

Then I was doing 2006-7JY-04.

That sorted well. Survived the international test. (You do recognize that 2006-07-04 CAN be misinterpreted by a Brit. I used to work for one! I became a beleiver in GMT for everybody but that’s another story.) Bottom line I think the dashes are a waste of keystrokes.

So maybe the answer is just 20068AU03. Sorts well, looks ugly, and is olny 9 characters aot the 11 I first thought of using.

Sigh, darn those calendar makers. Maybe I should just use 2006.215?