This is related to how I define technical debt: the delta between what exists, and what you would write if you could start from scratch and had infinite time. P

This is related to how I define technical debt: the delta between what exists, and what you would write if you could start from scratch and had infinite time. Paying down technical debt is therefore the process of moving the system toward that clean-slate state. Of course, if you look at all those little deltas between the current and clean-slate states, some of them are much more expensive to live with or solve than others. This definition doesn’t help you decide which changes to make first, only what your North Star should be.