[perrygeo]

I haven't tried either of those two approaches but I have used this: If your upcoming feature work is impacted by tech debt, do the tech debt work first to set the stage for easier feature development.

I've heard it called "make the change easy, then make the easy change".

This has the benefit of putting all tech debt work in the context of moving the software forward. If there's tech debt in a corner of the project that never changes, so what? Leave it. If there's tech debt in an active part of the codebase, it quickly impacts feature work and needs to be dealt with immediately.

[somuchdata]

Makes sense! I like that too (when I can get away with it!)