Professionals within street-level organizations are essential for the delivery of public services to citizens. However, among a number of difficult dilemmas, they have to deal with an extensive workload.The police can be seen as a good example of this; they are expected to solve most crimes, includingthe so-called mass crimes and the more spectacular cases that make it into media headlines, and often on a continually decreasing budget. A key regulating mechanism for investigation departmentsin the Swedish police is the so-called balance. The balance can be described as a basket in whichthey put the cases that there is a desire and potential to work on but not in the immediate term.The purpose of this article is to analyse the balance as a way of rationing the workload within theSwedish police. Working with the balance consists of two processes: limiting and buffering the workload. Limiting is the practice of reducing the work in a situation. Buffering is the process of puttingsome work on hold to deal with later, of which the article identifies five kinds; functional, problematic,quasi, progressive, and symbolic buffering. The exploration of ‘the balance’ contributes to our understanding of how street level organizations attempt to defend their professional jurisdictions, theirwell-being, and their ability to complete their duties.