Finding earliest of two dates excluding empty cells

[nickd193]

Hi, I'm working on a task list with two date fields - Action Date (the date to focus on something) and Due Date. Not every task has a due date. and not every task has an action date. Is there a formula I can use to pull either the earliest of those two dates (if there are two) or whichever date there is (if only one)? Thank you!

[kuovonne]

This technique shines best when there are multiple date fields, but it also works when there are only two.

[nickd193]

Thank you, that's helpful! Any thoughts on how I could incorporate this into a formula that also returns the result "9999-99-99" for when either of the date fields is blank? For sorting purposes. So I think the logic would be: If there are two dates, show the earliest one; If only one date, show that one; Otherwise, show 9999-99-99