# The rhythm of fractional work Canonical page: https://www.gabrielvaldivia.com/notes/the-rhythm-of-fractional-work - Author: Gabriel Valdivia - Published: 2026-09-21T14:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-21T14:38:13.548Z One of the hardest things to figure out when working independently is how many clients you can realistically take on at once. It’s tempting to think about capacity as simple division. Two clients get half your attention. Three clients get a third.But client work rarely behaves that neatly. In practice, engagements have a natural arc and the amount of attention they require changes as the product and relationship mature. Some periods are intense and others settle into a steady rhythm. Understanding those changes makes it much easier to manage multiple clients without spreading yourself too thin. I’ve started to recognize three distinct phases that most of my engagements move through. #### Phase one: finding the direction. The beginning of an engagement with an early-stage team usually requires the most attention. There’s little shared context, lots of open questions, and no established way of working together yet. You’re learning the product and the people at the same time. The work is primarily about defining the product offering and aligning on the roadmap. Decisions require more discussion, exploration is broader, and trust still has to be earned. Depending on the project, this phase can take 3-6 months and requires the most back and forth with the founders calibrate on the goals and sensibilities of the team. This is also where an experienced designer can have an outsized impact. It requires falcon work: someone who can easily zoom out to strategy and zoom in to execution, sometimes in the same conversation. Experience becomes invaluable to help designers be a thought partner and rapidly prototype ideas. When I started working with [Workmate](/work/workmate) , the product was still an idea in the founder's head. We used design as a way to think through what the company could become, exploring different ways AI teammates might work, building prototypes, testing assumptions, and changing direction as we learned. That early work eventually became the prototype the company used to raise its $10M seed round. #### Phase two: building momentum. Once the core offering is defined and validated, design shifts to execution gear. Instead of the back and forth that defined the previous phase, Design helps the company charge forward by accelerating the progress that needs to be made. In this phase, shared context starts to compound. You understand how the founders think, they understand how to get the most out of you, and the big questions gradually give way to smaller ones. More of your energy can go directly into the work because you’ve already established a direction and a way of working together. Dex has spent much of our relationship in this phase. What started as designing the core experience grew into work across the physical device, prototypes, characters, audio feedback, the parent experience, brand, and more. Because we’ve accumulated so much context together, I could move between those problems without having to relearn the company every time. That makes the relationship both more efficient and more expansive over time. #### Phase three: building beyond me. Once the product has found traction and the company begins to scale, my role shifts toward setting up the company for long term success. This involves helping the team understand what design archetype they need, creating the right environment internally so they can thrive, and finding and onboarding the designers who can take it forward. By this point, the accumulated context in how the company operates — what makes the founders tick, how to leverage design to persuade the team, and the unique opportunities for design impact — becomes indispensable in making that transition. When I helped [Gather](https://www.gather.town/) define the vision for the next iteration of their product, I had the opportunity to hire the design team to execute it. I was responsible for the prototype that was presented at an all-hands, which created alignment and excitement around where we were headed. From there, my role shifted toward helping the founders understand how to level their designers appropriately, run an efficient interview loop, and talk to every candidate. Once the team was in place, I was able to transition from the project and let the newly established team execute freely. --- Thinking about engagements this way changes the question from “How many clients can I handle?” to “What does each client need from me right now?” The trick is to avoid stacking clients who need the same kind of attention at the same time. Two early engagements can be far more demanding than three mature ones. That’s why I try to stagger clients across this arc. I never take on two Phase 1 clients at once. In practice, two to three clients at different stages tends to be my sweet spot. Your ideal mix will depend on the kind of work you do, the clients you work with, and how you like to operate. Learning to compartmentalize the work into phases gives you a better sense of your real capacity, and makes it easier to build a sustainable practice.