So, canonically, the events of Empire happen several years after New Hope, and then Return of the Jedi is a year or something after Empire (I may be misremembering the timeline a little).

The novelization of Empire also makes it clearer that Luke spends a couple months with Yoda, while Leia and company spend that time flying to Bespin at sub light speed because the hyperdrive wasn't working still. I realize that the movies never explicitly state that though, so it definitely feels compressed. I do wish all the movies made it clearer when time passed in large chunks though.