meticulous

meticulous \muh-TIK-yuh-luhs\, adjective:

Extremely or excessively careful about details.

How much work gets done in the fall perennial garden depends somewhat on whether your gardening tendencies lean toward the meticulous or toward the casual.
-- Mary Robson, "Preparing for winter: What's to be done with plants as they go dormant?", The Seattle Times, October 30, 2002

Whatever else he taught me about science, Schotté also helped me understand that meticulous attention to detail and patience are as important to problem solving as a grand vision.
-- David Kessler, A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle With a Deadly Industry

Roosevelt was often persuasive and sometimes eloquent, displaying a power won in large part by his meticulous involvement in the writing process.
-- Carol Gelderman, All the Presidents' Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency

Meticulous ultimately derives from Latin meticulosus "fearful" (from metus, "fear"). The present sense stems from French méticuleux "overscrupulous." In present day English, the word usually carries a more positive connotation and is synonymous with precise and punctilious.