Viktoras: While I am a stickler for words (http://www.robg3d.com/2012/02/refactor/), I disagree on that overly precise definition, where technical debt is added deliberately. It’s a very interesting technique, but a very rare actual usage, and also unnecessary for a metaphor (much financial debt debt, other than a mortgage, is not from well-intentioned deliberate acts, but lack of discipline).

Personally I try to put all this in my definition of done. When you make a mess you clean up after working/eating/etc. And programming should be like that. Of course, the more of the artifacts described are created, the more you have to clean up! Therefore devs should think carefully when creating documentation, adding low importance issues to backlogs, etc. People need to take the larger system, that is the team, into account, and how this overhead and dirtiness affects the entire team.

Having regular “spring cleaning” events can also help to keep your team’s dev environment tidy and focused.