Forced Time. The trick in forcing time is to upset the timing of others - to make them hurry, to make them wait, to make them abandon their own pace, to distort their perception of time. By upsetting the timing of your opponent while you stay patient, you open up time for yourself, which is half the game.

[...]

Making people wait is a powerful way of forcing time, as long as they do not figure out what you are up to. You control the clock, they linger in limbo - and rapidly come unglued, opening up opportunities for you to strike. The opposite effect is equally powerful: You make your opponents hurry. Start off your dealings with them slowly, then suddenly apply pressure, making them feel that everything is happening at once. People who lack the time to think will make mistakes - so set their deadlines for them. This was the technique Machiavelli admired in Cesare Borgia, who, during negotiations, would suddenly press vehemently for a decision, upsetting his opponent's timing and patience. For who would dare make Cesare wait?

Joseph Duveen, the famous art dealer, knew that if he gave an indecisive buyer like John D. Rockefeller a deadline - the painting had to leave the country, another tycoon was interested in it - the client would buy just in time. Freud noticed that patients who had spent years in psychoanalysis without improvement would miraculously recover just in time if he fixed a definite date for the end of the therapy. Jacques Lacan, the famous French psychoanalyst, used a variation on this tactic - he would sometimes end the customary hour session of therapy after only ten minutes, without warning. After this happened several times, the patient would realize that he had better make maximum use of the time, rather than wasting much of the hour with a lot of talk that meant nothing. The deadline, then, is a powerful tool. Close off the vistas of indecision and force people to make up their damn minds or get to the point - never let them make you play on their excruciating terms. Never give them time.