But whenever I wade into the code for good reason, I reward myself by refactoring whatever areas I happen to touch. It's like throwing a fish to a seal. That way I always get a chance to do fun things like unifying similar code or making code more data-driven.

I'm still a perfectionist, but I'm also a strategic procrastinator. So while I'm working on code, whenever I think of anything, however small, that might improve it, I'll throw in a comment such as "TODO 0703 might want to tighten this up" or "TODO 0703 you need to test this case before releasing". I am so relentless and unforgiving that sometimes the TODOs multiply like rabbits.

Before I release anything, I grep on "TODO". As long as any TODOs show up, I can't release. If I need to put off something until later, I'll change that "TODO" to "LATER". Occasionally I'll make a point of revisiting my LATER entries, converting some of them back to TODO. That way perfection is an ongoing process, not an attained state.