In the winter I never use any fan speed above 2, its the only way to gain heat and maintain that heat. If I use above fan 2 in the city I can watch the temperature gauge drop. This is much more pronounced when its like today around 0F outside. This may seem counter productive running the low fan speed but once warmed up I get cooked out of the car. I can only have the temperature dial slightly past half way.
My car has been this way since new, takes about 15 minutes of highway driving just to fully warm the engine. I usually remote start the car for 5 minutes and still have to drive another 5-7 minutes until I start getting some heat.
I wish they would add a remote start option for the manual transmission. I can leave it in neutral. Also that is about accurate, my routine for warming the car in cold temps usually goes like this:
Start my car, leave fans and heater off, turn on rear window defroster is necessary.
If there is ice, I get back out and deal with that as best as I can.
If I still can't see out the window, I try to wait until the temperature reaches around 110F before turning front defroster on to 1.
If I can see out the window, I'll only wait until the car reaches 60F and then I'll set off.
I usually try to be easy shifting for the first few times until the transmission oil warms up, shifting around 2500.
I generally have to keep the car a gear lower than I usually would until it warms up to around 180F then it drives normally.
Once at 180F If I'm still a bit freezing I'll turn the heater to blow at the floor on 2 and that usually warms up the car nicely without decreasing the engine temperature too much. Once I'm warm I try to turn the heater off again until it reaches it's normal temp range between 218F and 226F
I'd really love to have an engine block heater.
This really only applies to my city driving.