Have you ever heard of the concept of Technical Investment? Sometimes one's skill level simply makes it really difficult to avoid technical debt, but as you gain experience, your skill level rises and your code begins to minimize debt more and more. Rather than spend your time refactoring, if you spend that same time improving your skill then the loss of debt in the future may outweigh the debt you've already accumulated at each step.
Improving skills can take the form of learning a new tool (css -> sass), a new programming pattern (like currying and monoids in functional programming), and more along those lines.
Granted, a huge problem with technical debt comes when your playing with a team, and if X people are going to be using your code, but it takes Y time to explain how that code works, then if takes Z time to refactor that code, and only W time to explain after the refactoring. Then, if XY > Z + XW, refactor every time!
Improving skills can take the form of learning a new tool (css -> sass), a new programming pattern (like currying and monoids in functional programming), and more along those lines.
Granted, a huge problem with technical debt comes when your playing with a team, and if X people are going to be using your code, but it takes Y time to explain how that code works, then if takes Z time to refactor that code, and only W time to explain after the refactoring. Then, if XY > Z + XW, refactor every time!