We do not fight monkey mind, we simply teach it how to be calm. After all monkey mind is part of us.
akalacha, what worked for me was whenever I started fussing about a person, place, thing or time I would remind myself that it wasn't real. I'm not there now, they are not here now, it isn't happening now or it hasn't happened yet. I made a practice of doing this every time it happened and I noticed it. After a while it got to the point i was intercepting the thoughts and defusing them before I even noticed they were happening.
Also, at night I would just lay there and count breaths. When ever my mind wandered I would just go back to 1. When I got to 10 and that didn't happen much in the beginning I would go back to 1 and start over.
Your friend,