You don't need a big refactor.
You need a small habit.
Every time you touch a file,
leave it a little better than you found it.
Rename the confusing variable.
Delete the dead code.
Fix the comment that lies.
Not a crusade — just the one thing
you noticed on your way through.
Big rewrites need permission,
a ticket, a meeting, a fight.
Small cleanups need nothing
but the discipline to do them
while you're already there.
A codebase doesn't rot in a day.
It rots one ignored mess at a time.
So it heals the same way:
one small fix, by whoever's passing through.
Be the person who leaves it cleaner.
The whole codebase is downstream
of that one habit.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
