Looking for a shurtcut of Properties.Settings.Default

Just try it like this:

Properties.Settings settings = Properties.Settings.Default;
settings.var1 = "x";
settings.var2 = "y";
settings.var3 = "Z";
settings.Save();

To shorten a little bit what you have to type you might try adding this to the initial using statements

using MyProps = <your_namespace>.Properties.Settings;

and then in code you could use

MyProps.Default.Var1 = "";

<your_namespace> should be replaced by the full namespace where the settings are defined.