I used to have obsessive-compulsive issues, when I was around 12 especially, but nowadays I think of them as obsessive-compulsive skills.

I've worked as a programmer in various languages though lately I just program my own stuff. What's always helped me the most has been (a.) lots of experimenting and (b.) keeping detailed notes or, when possible, making the computer generate the detailed notes for me.

When I'm starting a biggish project from scratch, I do a little bit, save a copy of what I have, and try it out. I make notes in the copy I'm working on of what needed changing, then change it and try it again. Whenever I get one part apparently working right, I save that version, then add other parts and debug those the same way.

When everything's going smoothly and I seem to be on a roll, I can often get away with adding several steps at once. The possible downside is that if inexplicable problems show up in the result, I may need to back way up and try those same steps one by one till I see which one causes the problem to start happening.

For me, the most important thing to avoid is deciding that I just can't deal with that particular language or application or programming environment -- unless of course there really is something else I'd be better off doing.

Good luck with the Cascading Style Sheets, Maven!