I made up a number when I said 10–it was rhetorical. But from your own story, you’re looking at 5 before you’re making the money.

lol tell that to my angry brothers who work in construction. they were so antiunion and it hurt them

For very short-term things, i.e. today or tomorrow, a sticky note on my desktop that goes into recycling the moment it is done. For medium term things, a checklist manager like Google Keep. For longer term or complex things, then project management software like Jira. As another commenter suggested, treat these like a scrum.

For request that I or my team perform for others, it goes into a ticketing system 100%.

True, but that might take you 10 years to get to a point where you’re no longer the new person and have skills to back it up.

There are no cheaper schools. There are expensive ones and more expensive ones. There is literally no option for the non-rich except to go into debt or learn to be a plumber.