I have watched several videos about potentiometers but usually the basic videos are either just watching a stream of numbers from 0-1023 scroll down a computer screen or dimming an led.
You can convert from 0-1023 to 0-10,000 milliseconds with the [u]map()[/u] function. (I assume your LED dimming example used map().)
Any suggestions on commands that you would use if you were making this?
I'll just try to get you started with this: The two most important concepts in programming are conditional execution (if statements, etc.) and loops (doing something over-and-over, usually until some condition is reached).
Once you understand those two concepts you can begin to understand how to write a program.
Another "trick" is to develop your code in small steps (one or two lines at a time), test-compiling and test-running as you go. It's also helpful to send little messages to the serial monitor so you can see the values of your variables and what your program is doing. i.e. You can make little messages that say "Turning LED on", or "Starting timer", or "Time's up", etc... Whatever you need to know or confirm.
In your program you can probably use delay(), but program execution pauses during delay() so you can't do anything (like read a pot) during the delay time. So eventually, you should learn how Blink Without Delay works. Using that technique, you can have several different delays/timers running at the same time, while you are also doing other stuff.