Although I understand what technical debt is, I often find it difficult to explain it to others in simple terms. From now on though, I’ll just reference Martin Fowler’s brilliant explaination.

What most appeals to me about the debt metaphor is how it frames how I think about how to deal with this cruft. I could take five days to clean up the modular structure, removing that cruft, metaphorically paying off the principal. If I only do it for this one feature, that’s no gain, as I’d take nine days instead of six. But if I have two more similar features coming up, then I’ll end up faster by removing the cruft first.

— [bliki: TechnicalDebt](Martin Fowler)