Lets start out with the simplest possible definition of a decision. In as situation with multiple possible courses of action, the choice is the behavior performed.
Animals do things that are remarkably purposeful and directed even with simple nervous systems. I think especially of animals that alter their environment to suit their own purposes. People build buildings, birds build nests, ants, bees and termites cooperate to build large and complex communal nests.
Its not hard for ants and birds to choose how to build these structures. They seem to do it based on internal rules that are pre-built into to the nervous system. I imagine there must be good and bad places to build an anthill, but the colony isn’t particularly bothered by the decision. They just get to work as group without blueprint. There is uncertainty about the final quality of the structure, but it doesn’t make deciding hard.
An architect has much harder decisions to make in choosing where to build a house, what kind of house should be built and how it should be built. In some of these decisions that need to be made, the number of potential pathways is large, but not all of the options are available. The home buyer wants a colonial, not a modern house. The range of potential choices is immediately restricted. Alignment of structures along north-south lines has well established rules and limits choice more. There are building codes that force choices.
The limitations on house building arise from bias, established practice- knowledge of what will happen depending on choices made. Its crystal clear that only layouts for colonials will yield colonial houses. You’ll never end up with a modernist cube.
But there are tons of hard decisions here as well. A single or two zone heating system? Well there are differences and cost and potential comfort. The cost is clear, but the benefits are much more uncertain. How will the areas of the house be used? Maybe three zones are really needed. Should the floor-plan be modified for energy efficiency? Maybe a heat-pump for some areas and area systems for others? And gas, electric? Hydrothermal?
Picking just one detail, we can wander out into a decision space where nothing is clear. Trading off cost and value is subjective and ultimate benefit hard to predict. Now start looking at interactions of this one decision with all of the others that need to be made, decisions get even harder. How many windows, insulation types create structural decisions that need to be made.
Decision making is hard because the choices are complex, the results of particular choices are uncertain and may have unintended consequences later on that we never even thought about.
Decisions making is hard for us compared to ants and birds because of our ability to contemplate the complexity and imagine a future we can’t control.
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