Machine translation:

This aspect was not lost on the educated people of the early modern period. At the end of the 18th century, Christoph Meiners (1791, p. 91) had pointed out that “even the union of as many facts and ideas as have been brought together in complete excerpts [causes] a multitude of combinations and prospects that otherwise never made or received would have".

Find the Meiners reference and look more closely at his version of combinatorial creativity with respect to excerpts.

See: Meiners, Christoph. 1791. Anweisungen für Jünglinge zum eigenen Arbeiten besonders zum Lesen, Excerpiren, und Schreiben. Hannover: In der Helwingschen Hofbuchhandlung.

Christoph Meiners, Anweisungen für Jünglinge zum eigenen Arbeiten besonders zum Lesen, Excerpiren, und Schreiben (Hannover, 1791), 85: ‘Man excerpire nie beym Lesen selbst. [...] Lesen hat seine Zeit, und Excerpiren hat auch seine Zeit’

Christoph Meiners recommended the separation of doing one's excerpting from one's reading perhaps in part because the creation of links between notes has different demands than the creation of the base note itself.

I find this to be generally easier as well. Often I'll provide one or two links from my note to others I know I have, or perhaps scribble down some reminders of these notes. Otherwise I generally do some additional work of creating these links in a separate sitting.

It's usually much easier to quickly add subject headings while reading and then use these as a basis of creating other more particular and direct links at a later time.

Create a list of the types of links within note taking systems and their meta data:

• taxonomies (tags, categories, subject headings, etc.)
• note to note links
• references to sources