Instead of proving that any finite cover by open intervals of $[0,1]$ has cumulative length (that $\sum (a_i-b_i)$ thingy) of at least $1$, generalize a little and show that $[0,x]$ any finite cover by open intervals has cumulative length of at least $x$.
Let $(a_1,b_1),\dots,(a_n,b_n)$ be your open cover of $[0,x]$ and suppose without loss of generality that $b_i\ge a_i$ (remove extra intervals as necessary). Then, $(a_1,b_1),\dots,(a_{n-1},b_{n-1})$ covers $[0,b_{n-1}]$ and $(a_n,b_n)$ covers $[a_n,x]$. There is some overlap and you can find a lower bound of the cumulative length using yo…