How do I set up a timer as a subprocess?

[Dfenestr8]

Hi.

Trying to set up a timer function for my irc bot, which uses the python
irclib.py.

If I use time.sleep(20), it tends to freeze up the bot completely for 20
secs. That's not what I want though! I want the program to wait 20 secs,
then perform another function, but in the meantime be able to accept other
commands.

How do I do that?