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For years I’ve been using (where applicable) the reverse order of the date, like 2022.02.22. It’s particularly convenient in filenames, as it makes alphabetic sorting also chronological.

There’s one issue with this style: even I, having used it through the years, percieve such a date as “not right” and have troubles comprehending it quickly. A person not accustomed to such a style finds it incomprehensible and gets lost.

Last year, I tried the same style with dashes instead of dots. You’d think 1945.11.20 and 1945-11-20 are basically the same, yet they aren’t! The second style looks much more natural, and reading it involves much less cognitive overload.

I think it’s because of a stereotype: dots are the separators in the traditional layout of date, and the brain, seeing a group of numbers separated by dots, automatically gets ready to read them as “day, month, year”. For dashes, there’s no common concept, so no effort is needed to break out of the stereotype.