Issue with the PRE function in workflows - Workaround?

There is a note in the help  that says: "It is strongly recommended that you do not use the PRE function with workflow rules containing a Wait action, because the Wait action affects the PRE function. Any actions following the Wait action are not performed until the specified wait period has expired. The remaining actions are performed in a different batch operation than the operation where the rule was originally triggered, and the values of the fields on the record prior to the action that triggered the workflow rule are not preserved. Therefore, the previous value and the current value