To suspend the execution of a command for a specific amount of time use the command: sleep time_in_seconds ; command . The second command will not be carried out until the amount of time specified as an argument to the sleep command has elapsed. ... You can also enclose the commands in parentheses to group them together and then run the combined command in the background, allowing you to carry on working at the shell prompt: (sleep time_in_seconds ; command ) . ...