Single Digit Year Notation

The Arizona Diamondbacks won the World Series on 11/4/1, the Downing Street Memo was transcribed on 7/23/2 and today is 6/21/5. The decade may be too far gone for single digit year notation to catch on, but I have written dates this way consistently since 2000.

When marking the date on memos, home-made cd's and hand written notes, why waste your time writing a superfluous zero before the year digit? Doesn't 6/21/5 mean the same as 6/21/05? Do you waste your energy writing a zero before single digit months? Do you have to write 06/21 to remind yourself that June is the sixth month and that the six represents a single digit number? Likewise, we can assume that a year expressed as a single digit is from the units column.

We are in a unique decade in history. We will never again see zeros in the ten's place of years in our lifetime. Let's embrace the remaining years of this span and express these years as single digits. There is no risk of confusion, we will eliminate the physical exertion of having to write unnecessary zeros, and we will be celebrating the special qualities of the first decade of this century.