I'm quite new to this whole 3D medium, so I will definitely have a look at the plugin you're suggesting.
That was one of my first questions when I got my Ender. I noticed the extruder didn't start heating until the bed was at temperature. I said "Screw That!" and I started them at the same time. What I found out right away was that the head gets to temperature LONG before the bed, and filament just dribbles out of the hot nozzle... One compromise I tried was to turn on just the the bed at first, but wait for a lower setpoint, and when the bed got to a slightly lower temp than operating, start the heating of the nozzle, and update the bed setpoint to operating temperature. You can experiment with what that partial setpoint is to get both bed and head to temp at the same time, but I decided it wasn't really worth it the effort. (Edit: I see some people use the timer instead of a midpoint setpoint for the bed. Basically the same idea.)
That is what the plugin I mentioned before does.