You may ask why should I put the date into a file name when my computer automatically associates the date into a file. One thing to consider is that you may update a file and thus changing the original date. By adding a date into the file name you are ensuring the file will be associated with the date you intend. Also if revisions of a document are made it is makes a lot of sense that files with an earlier date are earlier file revisions.
Some people find it more useful to have the date at the start of the file name, while
others might prefer it at the end. Either way, it is a useful sorting tool when the files are organized, and the same rule is consistently used.
The best way to list the date is based on an international standard following ISO 8601. This international standard date notation is: YYYY_MM_DD or YYYYMMDD.
Don't fret its not all that confusing when you understand these simple concepts. YYYY are the numbers used for the year, MM is the numerical month of the year between 01 (January) and 12 (December), and DD is the day of the month between 01 and 31. For example, the day that this post was posted, April, 23 2011 is written as 2011_04_23 or 20110423.
Why not just use the format you are already used to? Well this particular format allows ease of sorting and comparing files by date and prevents confusion with other date formats (especially in other formats that use just two digits for the year).
For example, this blog entry could be named:
Abacus_20110423
to reflect that this entry was created on April 23, 2011.
Likewise a document containing the content (words & images) for a WebPage could be named:
20110423_WelcomePage.txt
This way the files are more easily sorted by date. All of the files and their revisions can be placed in the same folder.
