How to pause for specific amount of time? (Excel/VBA)

Most of the presented solutions use Application.Wait, which does not take in account the time (miliseconds) already elapsed since the currend second count started, so they have an intrinsic imprecision of up to 1 second.

The Timer approach is the best solution, but you have to take in account the reset at midnight, so here is a very precise Sleep method using Timer:

'You can use integer (1 for 1 second) or single (1.5 for 1 and a half second)
Public Sub Sleep(vSeconds As Variant)
    Dim t0 As Single, t1 As Single
    t0 = Timer
    Do
        t1 = Timer
        If t1 < t0 Then t1 = t1 + 86400 'Timer overflows at midnight
        DoEvents    'optional, to avoid excel freeze while sleeping
    Loop Until t1 - t0 >= vSeconds
End Sub

USE THIS TO TEST ANY SLEEP FUNCTION: (open debug Immediate window: CTRL+G)

Sub testSleep()
    t0 = Timer
    Debug.Print "Time before sleep:"; t0   'Timer format is in seconds since midnight

    Sleep (1.5)

    Debug.Print "Time after sleep:"; Timer
    Debug.Print "Slept for:"; Timer - t0; "seconds"

End Sub

Wait and Sleep functions lock Excel and you can't do anything else until the delay finishes. On the other hand Loop delays doesn't give you an exact time to wait.

So, I've made this workaround joining a little bit of both concepts. It loops until the time is the time you want.

Private Sub Waste10Sec()
   target = (Now + TimeValue("0:00:10"))
   Do
       DoEvents 'keeps excel running other stuff
   Loop Until Now >= target
End Sub

You just need to call Waste10Sec where you need the delay

Here is an alternative to sleep:

Sub TDelay(delay As Long)
Dim n As Long
For n = 1 To delay
DoEvents
Next n
End Sub

In the following code I make a "glow" effect blink on a spin button to direct users to it if they are "having trouble", using "sleep 1000" in the loop resulted in no visible blinking, but the loop is working great.

Sub SpinFocus()
Dim i As Long
For i = 1 To 3   '3 blinks
Worksheets(2).Shapes("SpinGlow").ZOrder (msoBringToFront)
TDelay (10000)   'this makes the glow stay lit longer than not, looks nice.
Worksheets(2).Shapes("SpinGlow").ZOrder (msoSendBackward)
TDelay (100)
Next i
End Sub

You can use Application.wait now + timevalue("00:00:01") or Application.wait now + timeserial(0,0,1)