I was spending some time this weekend (as usual) clearing out weeds on my lawn when I suddenly realized how similar weeds are to technical debt.

Clearing weeds as they appear and before they spread requires time and patience, but it is manageable if tackled continuously.

The same applies to technical debt, which is much cheaper and faster to pay back in the early stages of a software project.

Let weeds spiral out of control, and the cost and time to fix the problem increase to a point where you begin to wonder whether it’s more cost-effective to start over from scratch.

This is also true for technical debt.

How do you prefer to tackle technical debt?