Complicated time question

[Junior]

Hi. If I have several entries for events that are happening at the
same time how do I count only the time participated.

Ex:

Time In Time Out Total Time Running Total
7:00 pm 7:30 pm 30:00 30:00
7:01 pm 7:35 pm 34:00 1:04

The problem is that I did these two events practically simultaneously.
The first event took 30:00 and the second took 34:00. But since they
were both done at basically the same time the running total time I
would like to come up with is 34:00, not 1:04. The only way I know how
to do it now is to do a running total of both events.

Is there any way I can write a formula to handle this situation?

Thanks.

 

[Fred Smith]

You could use MIN to ensure you are not double counting, eg:

=min(b2-b1,b2-a1)