Written 2026.07.05U, ~6:30 PM
Labeling the date on things is useful. I have been trying to do it more.
One change I have made to how I label dates is that in the day-of-the-month field I add a letter code representing the day of the week that day fell on. I find this minor extra addition adds a lot of useful context when looking at a date, especially when comparing dates between multiple items (e.g. looking through dates on notes, or looking through past journal entries).
The letter code I use is as follows:
Monday -> M
Tuesday -> T
Wednesday -> W
Thursday -> H
Friday -> F
Saturday -> A
Sunday -> U
For example, I wrote this on July 5th, 2026. Today is Sunday.
A few examples of how I may use this are below:
07/05A: Quick form, I use this in notes all the time.
07/05A/2026: The crusty, USA longform way to write the date.
05A/07/2026: The more ambiguous but less crusty European way to write the date. Note how the fact I write the day-of-the-week letter code here completely disambiguates which format I am using. It is compatible with the mostly normal most common date-formatting options, meaning you can add it into however you already write your dates.
2026.07.05A: Longer date when I want to be more precise.
One last consideration: One may wonder, given that the day of the week is being added, maybe there should be a letter code for the month of the year to go along with it. I do not think this is worthwhile. The month number is very unambiguous, and it isn't too hard to learn offhand what each month number corresponds to. However, the day of the week shifts for a couple factors, and there are many more real life happenings based around the cyclical nature of the week than there is for specific months. The day of the week is a useful piece of context that is emergent from the day of the month.
Changelog
2026.07.14T: Moved to separate page.