Like many young researchers, Stephana Julia Moss sometimes finds herself sending emails late at night. Not that her colleagues know: she uses the schedule send function so emails composed at 11pm arrive the following morning.

For Moss and many of her friends, who work after hours because childcare invades the nine to five day, the function is invaluable. “Given the demands on a lot of young women professors, there are certain parts of our day where we cannot respond to our email when our counterparts could,” she says.

As the boundaries between work and leisure time become more porous, Moss is one of many workers using hacks that enable them to work flexibly, while protecting colleagues’ free time and respecting some uniformity of working hours.