Abstract
A fundamental problem in experiments with open quantum systems is to ensure steady-state convergence within a given operational time window. Here, we devise a general state preparation recipe to control relaxation timescales and achieve steady-state convergence within experimental run times. We do so by constructing a unitary operation that cancels the desired relaxation modes. We provide an example in a few-body interacting system (long-range qubit chain), taking into account limitations of experimentally accessible unitary operations in quantum simulators.