Some tips:
- Try to stay active on this forum. Even if you aren't posting. Try to make it a routine to read a couple threads and see if you understand what people are saying in the responses. If you don't understand something, look it up. There are some really wise people here, and you'll start to see a lot of commonalities in responses and sections that are referenced
- As Larry said, memorizing specific details is almost impossible and useless, but knowing where to go is very usesful. What that looks like for me is memorizing certain article numbers and chapter numbers. Just big picture. Almost like just stepping back and trying to visualize the NEC's topics in your mind. Practically for me it's similar to (very lightly) studying the table of contents for the NEC. Step 1: Have just the chapter titles ingrained in you for Chapters 1 through 4 (the most commonly reference chapters). That's only 4 things to remember, so it should be quick. Step 2: Memorize just a few of the article numbers in those chapters that you think you'll reference often. You'll be amazed at how much this helps you. You only need to know the title/topic. Simple example: Know that 250 is grounding and bonding. You don't need a large list here. I've been in this industry for many years, and off hand, I could only do this for about 10 articles. 100, 110, 210, 215, 230, 240, 250, 310, 430, 450, 690/1, and 705 for me. Others, most likely you as well, will want to have different lists of articles that are important to you.