So many apps, so little time. If you take a look at your smartphone’s app store, you’ll be inundated with choices. There are dozens of messaging apps, hundreds of games… it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff and have a look at some of the likely–and some of the not-so-likely–apps you’ll want to install on your phone.

Evernote

Time to throw away the pen and paper, because once you install Evernote, you’ll never need anything else to take notes. Evernote bills itself as a note-taking app, but it’s much more versatile than that label lets on. Create to-do lists, upload pictures, and jot notes that you can share with others. Best of all, you can store all your notes in the cloud, meaning you can pick them up anywhere, even on your computer. Evernote is free, but for additional features, you must pay a subscription fee.

Snapchat

You’ve probably heard of Snapchat, the picture and video messaging app that deletes your messages after they’ve been read. You might think Snapchat is for youngsters only, and while it’s true that Snapchat’s biggest user base is teenagers, the app is great for all ages. Sending a Snap isn’t all that different from simply texting a photo or video to a friend, but there is something to be said about the immediacy of a self-deleting message. Plus, Snapchat’s fairly new Lens feature overlays funny animations over your selfie, which you can’t help but share with all your friends.

Spotify

What’s life without a music? There are many music streaming apps to choose from, but Spotify is one of the most popular. That’s because it’s one of the oldest music streaming services that’s still running, and for good reason: it has a huge library, a lot of users, and tons of curated playlists. Spotify follows the popular “freemium” payment model, meaning that you can use it for free, but you have to pay to remove ads and get additional features. If Spotify doesn’t do it for you, instead check out Google Play Music or Apple Music, which are pretty similar in function but offer slightly different features and layouts.

Robinhood

If you’ve fancied yourself a stock trader someday but you’ve always been intimidated or not quite sure where to start, Robinhood has your back. The app makes stock tracking and trading super easy and doable in the palm of your hand. You simply sign up, put some money into an account, and choose which companies you want to buy stock in with the push of a button. No stock brokers or financial advisors you have to deal with, just pretty graphs and a nice user interface.

MyFitnessPal

There are many, many fitness apps that will help you get fit and lose weight. However, exercise is only one part of the healthy equation, and of all the apps out there, none really help keep track of your calorie intake quite like MyFitnessPal. Simply enter in the food you’ve eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacktime, and the app will count up all the calories and macronutrients and tell you if you’re over or under your goal for the day, even taking into account the exercise you’ve done. If that’s not good enough, the app also has a barcode scanner, so all you have to do is take a picture of the food you’re eating to log it into your nutrition diary.

These apps will be enough to get you going, but there’s plenty more great stuff out there. The best way to find the truly perfect app for you is through trial-and-error. Just keep an eye on the paid apps – you’d be surprised to see how easy it is to spend on them!