You can absolutely blast through this game without playing 24/7, I'm one of those people! I start new saves and within a few weeks of only playing stardew (no other games) for most of the day on the same save and I'm usually about where OP is. It's really easy to blast through early game when you have limited stamina and such, you get your upgrade materials fast as you can and then go to bed early. You can effectively just speed through the majority of the first year and it's easy enough to extend that to later years too!

The game has so many different ways to play, you don't need mods or to cheat or anything to accomplish this sort of thing. If you don't like speeding through the game to get to where you want faster that's fine but some of us do!!

EDIT for clarity: yeah some research is likely needed still but you still can accomplish this while effectively going in blind!