How to keep information across rows locked together but still allow sorting

"My reason is bc the other day I ruined ~ 2 weeks worth of work as I sorted a single column when I meant to sort the entire spreadsheet based on the order of values in this specific column but keeping the rows in tact. I don't want to accidentally do this again, I can't afford this mistake."

You avoid this mistake by not selecting multiple cells. When multiple cells are selected it restricts the Sorting to those cells only. In the even that it happens again, though, just use Undo to restore to the previous order... there's no reason for any work to be "ruined" :-)

There is no feature to "lock the data across" rows... The program is designed to eliminate that requirement. IMO, selecting multiple cells should only be done if you have an unusual need... such as actually wanting to sort only that range of records within a larger list or if there happens to be a series of empty columns with no captions being used in the list or maybe a few other special circumstances.
 
Although Phillip's homemade video isn't wrong, it most definitely is the long way around & can lead to exactly the problem you're trying to avoid. It is totally unnecessary -- neither do I recommend -- that you attempt to select the entire range of cells. Among other reasons, that can be a real chore with a large list & can result in missing rows/columns that need to be included.

If you want to sort the list based on the content of a single column you need only right-click any cell in that column of the list & select Sort> Ascending/Descending/etc. from the shortcut menu.

If you want to sort based on the content of more than one column just select any single cell in the list then use the Data> Sort command, the Sort button in the Data tab or the contextual menu mentioned above to choose Custom Sort.