It’s not how you got there
In thermodynamics, you can define the state of any simple compressible system by two independent intensive properties. A simple compressible system is one where the effects of gravity and motion can be neglected; independent properties are ones that aren’t related to each other; and intensive properties are characteristics of the state whose magnitudes are not dependent on mass.
What doesn’t define a state though, is the process by which it arrived - the length of time, order the components were added, or the method used for heating and cooling. It doesn’t make a difference whether 4 days or 4 seconds was taken, whether something was frozen in the freezer or given a douse of dry ice. What matters is that the required properties are reached to make it the correct state.
Similarly, you can write a computer program in C++ which does something in 200 lines that Python could do in 40 lines; you can spend 5 minutes working out the square root of a number to 3 decimels on paper that you could spend 5 calculator keystrokes on; or you can either take 6 detours by public transport and get lost, or drive straight from your house via the shortest route in 15 minutes and in both cases, still make the 11am meeting. To the end user, the result of the equation and the other attendees at the meeting, it shouldn’t make a difference.
If you’re accountable for getting work done, it doesn’t matter how long the work takes, what the temperature was while you were doing it (or not doing it), or what method you chose for getting it done, what matters is that you get it done.
