When the year changes

It used to be that, for the first month or three of a year, I would keep finding myself writing the wrong year when I wrote the date down, and having to cross it off (if I even noticed). And then I had an idea for how to address that. When the new year started, I would get out my checkbook and, on the first half-dozen checks or so, write in the year in advance. Every time I went to write a check after that, my pen would move towards the year, intending probably to write the wrong year, only to find the year already there. This would not only prevent me from writing the wrong year on the check, it would also remind me about the change in the year, which would drum the lesson into my head. Once I started doing that, I almost never wrote the wrong year again.

Only problem with this is that I go through maybe five checks in a year nowadays. Writing the year on the checks is not only dangerous (since I don't know how many checks I'll need in that year) but unhelpful (since it might be May before I write my first check). So what can I do now? I need another clever solution. I thought about maybe using timesheets, except I prepare timesheets on my computer, then print and sign, so I can't even do those in advance. They're one of the very few places I still write the date, and the only one that recurs, too.